The Real Cost of Chocolate
Say whaaattt? Excuse me! Your chocolate costs HOW much?
We get it. When you’re accustomed to paying $2.50 in the supermarket aisle for your favourite chocolatey treats, you might be wondering why on earth anyone would pay $16 for a chocolate bar. Let us tell you why, in a nutshell.
The chocolate bar industry is relatively new—give or take 200 years or so! The history of cocoa however, is a long and winding path which (let’s be honest) is filled with a lot of darkness around human rights abuses and ethical issues. The demand for chocolate grew so fast in the Western world, that farmers in growing countries have had to compromise on the quality of their beans to produce quantity—meaning that oftentimes the chocolate that we do eat is made from subpar beans that are often over roasted to hide flaws, and whose flavour is generally masked with milk powder, sugar and vanilla.
A large percentage of the people farming cocoa that makes the products we love to eat just aren’t being paid enough for their efforts. This means that they’re often living below the poverty line, which leads to desperate actions like slave labour and illegal deforestation entering the supply chain…and this is just a scratch on the surface!
The chocolate we make at Just is made from beans transparently sourced, through suppliers that ensure that farmers are being paid a fair wage for their beans. This ensures that the quality of the bean is miles above what bulk cocoa offers—which highlights the seasonality and terroir of each origin and harvest.
The truth is, chocolate is nuanced and beautiful. It shouldn’t all taste the same, and it shouldn’t all taste bitter or like creamy sugar. The price of our bars is reflective of quality—a result of the hard work of the farmers on the ground, the education of those working to refine the industry, the respect given to the beans during fermentation, drying, roasting, cracking, winnowing, grinding, conching and the final steps of tempering and packaging before it makes it way into your hot little hands.
Image © Kokoa Kamili 2022