It started with Giulio Di Sturco’s photo for Time and since I only know Madagascar from the animated comedy film on four zoo animals, I clicked on it.
The short article and the series of photos showed farmer and gang member killings over cocoa beans in Madagascar. Cocoa being one of the major agricultural products and Madagascar being one of the poorest countries in the world, cocoa beans literally mean life to them.
As an advocate of eating chocolates when sad or tired or just craving, the first question that came in my mind was, ‘Is my favourite chocolate sources its cocoa from Madagascar?’ And so my research digs further.
Africa, where Madagascar is located supplies 70% of the cocoa needs of the chocolate manufactures in the Western part of the world (slavefreechocolate.org) with the Ivory Coast being the top producer (1.650 million metric tons in 2012). This is because the Cacao trees thrive easily in equatorial regions.
Aside from the killings in Madagascar are also the issues of child labour, human trafficking and abusive labour practices in the cocoa industry not only in the country but in the African continent. Grist.org cited in one of its articles a 2011 Tulane University study that projected the number of children working in cocoa-related activities at 819,921 in Ivory Coast and 997,357 in Ghana.
Nevertheless, not all cocoa farmers/workers are underpaid and abused. There are Fair Trade Certified Producer groups or cocoa farmers that are paid with or even above the minimum market price. Chocolate manufacturers who buy cocoa from them gets the ‘Fair Trade’ chocolate label or in other words, slave free chocolate classification.
This brings me now to a list of Fair Trade chocolates which unfortunately are all foreign to me.
(this is from slavefreechocolate.org:)
I thought of looking for organic or fair trade chocolates that are locally produced. I found Theo and Philo Artisan Chocolates that boast of being the only bean to bar chocolate in the Philippines. This chocolate company, founded in Davao City by Philo Chua shows off unique chocolate flavours with a Filipino twist like the Adobo flavour that has soy sauce toffee and black pepper.
I tried it since this might be my staple chocolate from now on. The Milk Chocolate Turon flavour taste good, the banana taste is really there and the crispy caramel made it more fun to eat. I also bought the Dark Chocolate with Green Mango and Sea Salt and it was really dark. Haha! I am not fond of eating dark chocolates but for those who are, please try this, it will really kick in to your senses!
A friend told me to try the Labuyo flavour or tour around GK Enchanted Farm in Angat, Bulacan to see how the chocolates are made. (Theo and Philo, I guess partnered with Tony Meloto’s Gawad Kalinga.) I said I just might do that some time. Tara!