If you love chocolate as much as I do, and want to ensure that you are buying chocolate that is not harvested by slave labor in West Africa, you may be interested in this article I wrote for my blog, “Chocolate, Slavery and Our Collective Guilt”. Unknown to many of us is the fact that slave labor is still used on cocoa plantations. This “blood chocolate” is produced and sold by some of the largest chocolate companies. It is possible to buy Free Trade chocolate, but you need to know what brands to look for and what labels on the packaging to look for. After doing research for the article, I was glad to see that Green and Black chocolate is sourced from non-slave growers.

To read the article:http://cookinginmexico.com/2010/11/19/chocolate-slavery-and-our-collective-guilt/

Thank you for the informative post Kathleen. I hope everyone will get a chance to look at it.

Thanks…shared this one on Facebook…

Callebaut is now offering 4 types of free trade chocolate. I haven’t tried it yet, but I will be sure to. I’m always looking for free trade. I’ve used Equal Exchange and Divine, but I found them better for eating than baking. But as my knowledge about baking expands,   I will give those brands another shot. Could of been baker error!

I’m so glad to know this, because free trade chocolate is most likely slave free chocolate. As long as we consumers demand free trade chocolate, more companies will provide it. Callebaut is a very good quality chocolate, and obviously they also have a sense of integrity and ethics.

I was very pleased when Callebaut announced this just this month. I’ve always used Callebaut, but have felt kind of guilty at the same time. I think you’re right. Once other companies realize that consumers want their chocolate from sustainable chocolate farms, more companies will be offering this option. It just makes sense, not only for the farmers who should have a decent wage, but for the soil.

Hi Kathleen,

I’m glad to see your response. On my blog, I wrote a very well researched article on the connection between slavery and the harvest of cocoa beans in West Africa. Of all my articles, it was one of the least read and least commented upon, to my disappointment, as I think this is a very important topic. From my observations, most people eat chocolate, and many of them feel passionate about it, myself included. For these chocolate lovers, I think the article was not popular, because many readers would rather not know about this dark part of chocolate and have to act upon this knowledge by buying free-trade chocolate, which is more expensive. Plus, the idea of slavery in this modern age is so repellent, we would rather not visit this topic at all. It is extremely repellent, and may be difficult, to admit to ourselves that we support slavery each time we purchase and consume chocolate that is not free-trade. For those who are unable to face this fact, it is easier to avoid the subject all together.

Sarah, thank you for posting on Facebook.

Have you had the Taza Mexican stone ground chocolate? One of my favorites. Also, Endangered Species.

I’m looking for a good cocoa for baking. Any suggestions? Thanks! I didn’t care for the equal exchange (I think that’s the name)

Endangered Species

Oooh, Kathleen, this is my curent fave of all chocolate!  I use their milk chocolate when a recipe calls for milk (unless I need a certain percentage). I always mix chocoaltes (rahter than use a lot of one), but I always include some Endangered Species. This company makes GOOD CHOCOLATE!

I wish they had a white chocolate, but I haven’t seen it (or my store simply doesn’t carry it).

Cook’s Illustrated conducted their own dark chocolate taste test. (Wish I had been in the kitchen that day!) Anyway, Callebaut intense dark chocolate, L-60-40NV was their #1 pick, followed by Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate, Dagoba organic semisweet, Michel Cluizel Noir de Cacao dark chocolate and Valrhona Le Noir semisweet chocolate.
They also rated baking chocolate: Hershey unsweetened baking bar was #1, followed by Valrhona cacao pate extra 100%, Scharffen Berger unsweetened dark chocolate. Callebaut unsweetened chocolate was their #2 in the “recommended with reservations” column.

I love Callebaut chocolate, whether it is dark chocolate, milk chocolate, or white chocolate.  Around here, Whole Foods carries it.

Here’s a list of free-trade (and not fee-trade) chocolate. It is probably not up to day, as Callebaut is not on it, but it’s a start if anyone wants to use only free-trade (slave-free) chocolate.
http://vision.ucsd.edu/~kbranson/stopchocolateslavery/main.html

Hi

I’m new to this forum and i thought your article was very interesting. In fact it was the topic of discussion among my friends yesterday and oh boy was it a discussion