Why Fair Trade Chocolate: An Interview With Christopher Angell

Christopher and Suzanne Angell are huge candy bar fans but were also wise to what goes behind the sourcing of chocolate.  They founded Angell Organic Candy Bars, a family-run company that makes retro-themed candy bars with a fair trade twist.  I have featured their company before, and wanted to catch up with them after I finally met him at the Natural Food Products Expo in Anaheim.  Here is part 1 of the interview--part 2 of the interview runs tomorrow.

The idea to come up with retro-themed candy bars is genius!  What led you to that idea?

Well, as clichéd as it sounds, these bars began in our kitchen as a way to satisfy a craving we had that no one else was addressing- a candy bar as delicious as the ones we grew up devouring, but that was produced in accordance with more modern values regarding health and sustainability. We designed our packaging with a playful, nostalgic flair because we wanted to contrast our bars with other organic and fair trade offerings that we found too stoic.

What motivated you to source only fair trade-certified products?

To be completely honest, the original plan was centered on organic, not Fair Trade.  But as we began to educate ourselves further about chocolate production, it  became obvious that we also needed to use Fair Trade chocolate.  Suzanne and I have been very clear from the beginning that we wanted to avoid the slippery slope of compromises that is a part of the life cycle of so many well-intentioned consumer products.  No one was holding a gun to our head and saying “you make a candy bar or else” so if we couldn’t make a product that we felt 100% proud of, then we weren’t going to make one at all.  I don’t see how anyone who has educated themselves about the terrible things that go on at many cocoa farms could be proud of a product that exploits them.

What ingredients were the most challenging to source?

We are very lucky, both as manufacturers and as consumers, to be living in a time of unprecedented choice when it comes to food.  There is such a strong interest in chocolate right now that, with the exception of white chocolate (still largely ignored by most foodies and where demand for organic and fair-trade is still weak) there are a fair amount of options when it comes to sourcing responsibly produced chocolate.  A lot of people assume that we make our own chocolate, and we get a lot of questions like “why do you use soy lecithin?” or “why can’t you sweeten it with something other than sugar?”.  I guess what I’m saying is that, while we are basically satisfied with the quality and pedigree of all of our ingredients, there will always be someone with different standards out there, and they tend to be very vocal, which I respect a lot.

Now, we’ve had challenges finding some ingredients for bars we’re working on.  We’ve been trying for a long time to make an organic FT caramel of a particular consistency, and we’re finally very close. Making an organic product isn’t just as simple as finding organic versions of ingredients and substituting those in an existing formula, especially for something like caramel that, in most commercial formulas, relies on corn syrup, which we won’t use.

Learn more about Angell Candy Bars.

We will post more about what goes into certification tomorrow.

Read the rest of the interview here.