Hotel Chocolat has launched two new chocolate bars, and will pledge 100% of the funds towards better farming practices.
The new bars, including both a 50% milk option and a 70% dark option, are both made using beans from Saint Lucia and Ghana, where the brand works with farmers to develop gentle farming practises.
Funds from the sale will help to support initiatives in three key areas, including supplying free trade seedlings to farmers in Ghana, helping to provide hands on pruning and education on organic fertiliser.
“Chocolate is to be enjoyed, and it can provide a real moment of happiness but the process of growing it isn’t always good for nature, or for the farmers who are growing it,” said Hotel Chocolat Retail MD Lysa Hardy.
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“Increasing pressure on farming methods due to low payments for cacao has also led to deforestation, poor soil quality, loss of biodiversity and a cycle of hardship for farming families”.
She continued: “We started our journey of understanding what it takes to grow truly sustainable cacao almost 20 years ago when we bought our cacao farm in Saint Lucia”.
She added that while the organisation still has a way to go when it comes to more sustainable farming, she hopes that the investment can help pave the way for better practises.
The bars, which will retail at £2.95, are both covered in chocolate made using Saint Lucia cacao.
The chocolate industry has been criticised for its lack of sustainability, with major reports finding that there is still a way to go, and calling for fairer wages.
1 Comment. Leave new
Oh, OK, yawn, I got excited there thinking we were getting 2 new flavours, jot jiust variants oin the milk-dark spectrum