WASHINGTON – Divine Chocolate is different from the big chocolate brands — profits from the lesser-known “fair-trade” chocolate benefit West African cocoa farmers — but it’s still chocolate.
And with Valentine’s Day looming, that means sales have been good for the Carroll County nonprofit that distributes Divine Chocolate in this country.
“It’s definitely a good, chocolate-selling time,” said Sam Tokheim, manager of fair-trade foods at SERRV International, the New Windsor-based nonprofit that is Divine’s sole U.S. distributor.
So good that the company was running out of stock, Tokheim said from SERRV’s administrative center in Madison, Wis. As of Thursday, three of Divine’s six chocolate bars were sold out, he said.
Divine Chocolate is a brand of the Day Chocolate Co., a United Kingdom firm that claims to be the world’s first farmer-owned fair-trade chocolate company. Fair-trade firms claim they pay producers a better price for their product, and Day Chocolate gives farmers in Ghana partial ownership of the chocolate brand, which is made in Germany.
SERRV began selling Divine Chocolate in 2002, through fair-trade co-ops and natural-food stores as well as through its own catalog.
“We encourage consumers to buy fair trade and (support) farmer ownership because it is a viable alternative,” Tokheim said.
Business around Valentine’s Day is brisk, but demand usually peaks around Christmas, said Serena Sato, SERRV’s marketing coordinator. Halloween and Easter sales also receive seasonal boosts.
Tokheim said sales of Divine “have increased 200 percent over the last two years,” reaching more than $700,000 in 2004.
Still, sales of Divine Chocolate and other fair-trade products make up a tiny portion of the national chocolate sales. Americans bought $13 billion in chocolate, or 3.3 billion pounds, in 2000, according to the Center for a New American Dream, a Takoma Park organization that urged people to buy fair-trade chocolates and flowers this Valentine’s Day.
People are starting to catch on to fair-trade chocolate, especially given the prominence of fair-trade coffee, said Sarah Roberts, communications director at New American Dream.
Sato said Divine Chocolate’s customers range from older women interested in international issues to consumers who “care about the conditions of farmers.” One fair-trade retailer who carries Divine Chocolates said “all types of people” have bought the bars, including children, students, mechanics and businessmen.
“It’s not because of Valentine’s Day that they buy,” said Lea Foelster, assistant manager of Ten Thousand Villages in Bethesda, where a small Divine bar sells for $1.35. “It’s nothing special because they consume a lot already on a regular basis.”
And it is not just special occasions: Foelster said socially responsible consumers will go out of their way to support the cause.
“We have movie theaters around here. They could have bought it there,” she said. “But they walk here before they go to the movies.”
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