Friday, March 15, 2002


and how will you be celebrating american chocolate week?

don't worry, you still have time to prepare. the week runs from march 17-23. and it's a week worth celebrating on several levels. for the first time in years, chocolate prices have rebounded from deeply depressed to all new highs. at first it seemed like a short term fling, but the prices appear to be still climbing, mostly due to bad weather in africa and political problems in the ivory coast, where 40% of the world's cocoa orginates.

this means cooca farmers have a chance to make a somewhat decent living, and now can turn their attention to making the chocolate industry at the plantation level more humane and evironmentally friendly. (i've talked about abusive child slave labor on the cocoa farms in africa before. the chocolate industry, to its credit, is addressing this issue.) if prices continue to hold, you may see farmers turn from the still-diving prices of the coffee sector to plant more cocoa. indeed, it appears this already may be happening.

also, in this week's african cocoa conference in ghana, all levels of the chocolate and cocoa industry met to discuss how to improve living standards for cocoa workers and also move the industry to sustainable methods of agriculture. this is part of a long-planned program in the chocolate industry.

if you don't have a chance to celebrate this week by giving your friends and loved ones chocolate, you can at least send them some cyberchocolate. but since you care about them and want them to be healthy and happy, you really should make sure they eat some dark chocolate. so try making up some batches of my easy truffle recipe and giving them away!


posted by fortune | 6:55 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments