Chocolate
Many chocolate companies will use soya in their chocolate, as a result, we have had to be quite selective with the chocolate we source. British companies such as Seed and Bean, Montezuma's and Divine exciting soya free chocolate with flavour combinations such as Orange and Geranium. Recent developments in the food industry mean the use of sunflower lecithin can replace soya lecithin, which many of these forward thinking chocolate companies are taking advantage of to produce a more sustainable chocolate.
About Chocolate
Gabriel and Fraser Purdey worked in chocolate for four years before selling up in 2018. This was led in part to a desire to return to their farming roots but the love of a good quality chocolate bar has not left them. Gabriel set up Discover chocolate in 2014 which was a chocolate bar that used high quality stevia instead of sugar as a sweetener, and was free from palm oil. The company really grew when Fraser joined the team and hundreds of wholefood and farm shops around the country started stocking our chocolate bars.
When you are choosing a high quality chocolate bar, it is firstly important to be sure that the cocoa farmers are being paid a fair wage for what is a very hard job. This may seem obvious but sadly, cocoa, the main ingredient in chocolate, is a very corrupt industry and cocoa farmers are very often not paid the wage they deserve. Too many middle men take a cut and while a farmer can survive in a good years harvest, they then suffer in a bad years harvest and potentially go hungry. The two top producing cocoa suppliers on the planet, Cote D’ivore and Ghana have created the LID (living income differential) to stop this.
​
The living income differential is an agreement between Cote D’ivore and Ghana not to sell cocoa for less than a minimum amount. This is currently set at $400 above the seasons Cocoa price which is set by their respective governments. The two countries produce approximately two thirds of the worlds cocoa and are using their competitive market advantage to help cocoa farmers for the better. Nigeria have recently expressed an interest in joining this agreement.
Different cocoas around the world will all have different tastes. A cocoa bean from Indonesia will taste different to one from Brazil. The drying process also makes a difference, cocoa beans roasted will taste different to those dried naturally in the sun. Of course these are simple personal preferences, some like a stronger bar, some like a bar with fruity notes.