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 WASHINGTON (AP) - A chocolate company part-owned by a Ghanaian cocoa farmers' cooperative is offering Valentine's Day treats that it says are guilt-free — calories notwithstanding.
Divine Chocolate, a British company that has been operating since 1997, recently set up a sister company in Washington with the aim of bringing "fair-trade chocolate" to the mainstream U.S. consumer. The company pays farmers a guaranteed minimum price for their cocoa beans in an effort to protect them from market fluctuations and help lift them out of the poverty that plagues Africa's cocoa-producing regions.
Divine Chocolate is made with chocolate produced by the members of Kuapa Kokoo, a co-op created following the 1993 liberalization of Ghana's cocoa market that now includes some 20,000 small-scale farmers. The co-op created the Day Chocolate Co., later renamed Divine Chocolate Ltd., in partnership with natural cosmetics retailer Body Shop International PLC and British charities.
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