Oh my….. this company is leading the way. Their chocolate has to be the greenest I have yet come across.
Original Beans was founded by Philipp Kaufmann who,has worked for both the the WWF and the UN. He wanted to develop a business that would drive conservation.
So for every bar you buy, Original Beans plants a tree in the rainforest. They help conserve the rainforest and the bean farmers livlihood plus pay them a decent wage.
How
Original Beans helps establish tree nurseries, creates conservation training programs, and helps with planting buffer zones around rainforest reserves. New cacao trees generate income for farmers after three years; the other diverse plantings secure future food and firewood.
“Original Beans obligates itself to pay the farmers more than the sixfold of the official fair-trade premium in exchange for high quality and ecological commitment. This way we can convince smallholder famers to refrain from slash-and-burn pratices – the number one climate killer – and instead convert to a more sustainable semi-wild cultivation of mixed crops.”
They work with international agronomy institutes, such as the CATIE and the CIRA. Full traceability is guaranteed of all cacaos And they encourage the growing of unusual and rare cocoa beans for example they rediscovered and replanted a long forgotten and almost extinct bean , the Piura Porcelana.
The chocolate is organic which means the cacao beans have been grown in pesticide-free fields and free of preservatives.
The finished product does not additives or lecithin, raw cane sugar is used as a sweetener.
Plastic Free Packaging
There is so much more of interest But it is the packaging that really gets us going over here at PIR.
They use bio-compostable carton packaging made from FSC paper and printed with low-migration, natural inks from Lessebo Bruk.
They use “Natureflex foil for the chocolate sector. Made from renewable FSC wood, with a thin metallised layer (0,02%), it guarantees a high barrier to moisture, yet is garden-compostable by EU & US standards.”
And finally “To protect your chocolate, we use FLO-PAK Green packaging chips, made from 100% recycled material. They will be biologically reduced to carbon dioxide, water and humus without any residues within 1–3 years.”
Sadly I havn’t actually got to try any and at up to £4.45 A BAR IT IS NOT CHEAP.
If any one else has tried it, please let me know how it is.