As Easter approaches with the inevitability of another interest rate rise, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the source of the plethora of fertility-based chocolate effigies we’ll doubtless be devouring over the next few weeks as we celebrate what seems, at least in the southern hemisphere, to be a slightly anachronistic festival (given its origins in the coming of Spring…).
“Mainstream” chocolate is produced in a system “designed to give consumers the cheapest possible product and make sure that the large global multinationals are making sufficient profit” [Antoine Fountain, managing director of Voice Network, an organisation of NGOs and labour unions focused on cocoa sustainability]. “But it’s driving extreme poverty at the beginning of the supply chain”.*
At MAD, we do our best to source organic, fair-trade chocolate from smaller makers, many of which have direct trade relationships with their cacao growers (e.g. South Pacific Cacao with growers in the Solomon Islands, Spencer Cocoa with growers in Vanuatu and Bougainville Island, PNG and Loving Earth with the indigenous Ashaninka community in Peru) or ensure their cacao is sourced from smaller producer communities (e.g. Tilda & Cacao that only use UTZ certified organic criollo cacao, again from Peru).
South Pacific Cacao’s Ethical Easter Eggs (Cacao Pods) made with a ngali nut paste and 75% dark chocolate.
In addition, the large chocolate manufacturers continue to swamp us and our failing recycling platforms with simply acres of single use soft plastics that are at best troublesome to recycle, and in most cases simply end up in landfill, destined to eventually breakdown into microplastics and pollute our land, waterways and seas. The onus, as ever it seems, is placed upon the consumer to take responsibility for the plastic packaging, and not the manufacturer to avoid its use in the first place. MAD’s very philosophy is to elliminate single use plastic altogether, and as such, we simply don’t sell products in plastic. And that includes chocolate. All the packaging we use, or that of our suppliers that we sell, is either paper, plant-based home compostable cellophane, or industrial compostable PLA+.
So what does this mean for you when buying our chocolate? There’s no sugar coating it (see what I did there?), this chocolate is more expensive than the chocolate you will buy in the supermarket. But buying it means you are not only supporting small businesses (and not just MAD, but the businesses we source our chocolate from), and supporting the farmers (who are getting a fairer price for their cacao and other ingredients (e.g. locally grown hazelnuts, macadamias etc)), but also helping elliminate soft plastics, and sending a clear signal to the larger manufacturers to clean up their act in all aspects of their production. If that means you end up buying a little less of it, there’s surely benefit in that too? A “treat” should be just that, something to savour and enjoy, not devour mindlessly like Augustus Gloop.
Tilda & Cacao’s Hazelnut Easter Dinosaur Egg. The hazelnuts are sourced locally in NSW from a local grower using organic practices.
Importantly, you are buying a product worthy of the price tag. The chocolate we sell is a far cry from the generic bars, eggs and bunnies you will get at your local Woolworths, Coles or IGA. (I mean, we have an Easter dinosaur egg – bet you can’t get one of those at the IGA). It’s not manufactured as much as it is crafted. Often by just a handful of people in a small shop or factory that have invested their lives into the creation of something special. And these makers genuinely care about the product; not just about how it tastes (although they undoubtedly do – and we taste them all to make sure ;-), but how lightly they have trodden to create it, making sure they source raw materials ethically, as locally as possible, and with packaging that won’t cost the Earth.
The results speak for themselves. Chocolate you can enjoy (and I mean really enjoy, not just eat, but really experience) that will not only taste amazing, but will actually help Make A Difference.
*You can read more about this in an article entitled “The environmental disaster inside your sweet chocolate treat“, published by the SMH on 5 March 2023.
+Polylactic Acid, a “plastic” made from plant material (typically corn starch or sugar cane) that requires industrial composting. MAD are actively phasing out the use of this since, while it will ultimately decompose to harmless plant materials if sent to landfill, it takes many years.
