“Having a business is like having children; it doesn’t really make sense money-wise, and it’s the same with a small business.” -Barbara Wilson, Co-Founder of Mindo Chocolate Makers While Covid-19 has ravaged populations around the world, it’s also nearly halted the global economy. Almost every industry around the world is heavily affected, most often in …

“Against all odds, you know, these growers who were at one time among thousands— and now we’re down to really a handful of growers— the best plots are the ones that have survived… the ones… that have remained really are the ones that are worth keeping.” -Ning-Geng Ong, Founder of Chocolate Concierge For over a …

“I was the first person that came to East Timor and asked about East Timor cacao… one of the guys there had somehow gotten a hold of some information on how to ferment and dry, so he had done just a little bit with a few trees, and they sold me those first tries.” Mikaël …

“When we first started trying to purchase beans, when we called up the bean broker… we said, you know, we just want to buy one bag, two bags [of cocoa beans], and they kinda laughed and said ‘no one ever orders two bags of cocoa… I only have 11 customers. There’s only 11 companies in …

It’s the 1950’s; your country is poor and in the throes of recovery from WWII— but in the south, there’s the promise of land. The Japanese occupied the Philippines for 3 years, and after they were forced out, the country was devastated. Many Filipinos chose agriculture as a way out of poverty, and the country …

“I think even if the [cacao] beans are all the same, but the makers are different, the outcome is very different.” -Emily Paek, Founder of Public Chocolatory Emily Paek was one of the first craft chocolate makers in Korea, and quite frankly, it’s been a long road to journey down. Over the last few years …

“Craft chocolate is still such a small industry that it’s very rare that one, or even five craft chocolate makers would be able to purchase the entire harvest of one origin… they need the stability of a buyer who can bring on the cacao from the harvest as it’s coming out, as it’s ready to …

“Every farmer that we started with [in 2011], we are still working with.” -Vincent Mourou, Marou Chocolate Vincent Mourou is widely recognized as one of the first craft chocolate makers in Asia. He’s one of the co-founders of Marou Chocolate, a value-added chocolate factory established in 2011 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The company …

A commonly-quoted statistic is that the average age of a cacao farmer is 50 years old. That statistic comes from this 2014 article detailing studies done to determine the average age of cocoa farmers in West Africa. So while that number is not necessarily applicable to the rest of the world, globally, farmers are getting …

Maddy Smith comes from a family of fabricators. For her entire childhood, her family had this secret chocolate toffee recipe that served as the envy of the neighborhood. For the longest time, this was Maddy’s favorite treat. Years later, her family told her that they’d actually just clipped it out of the local newspaper— that …