Chocolate – The Best Ingredient In Saving the Rainforest

It’s Easter. The season of chicks, bunnies and chocolate.

Whether you’re planning to gorge on eggs or not, you cannot ignore that we’re a few days away from peak chocolate. And at this gluttonous time of year, a thought should really be spared for the rainforest. After all, without rainforest there’d be no chocolate.

To grow, cacao needs two metres of rain and temperatures of around 25ºC. These are conditions that you only find in the rainforest.

What’s more, chocolate keeps the chainsaws at bay.

No one knows this better than Vivienne Westwood.

Vivienne visited Cool Earth’s Ashaninka Project in Peru, where we’ve spent the last four years turning cacao into the main income source for the project’s 325 families. Vivienne has met the growers, seen the harvest and tasted the beans.

Now these prized beans have been turned into a chocolate bar. Made from cocoa grown, harvested and fermented in our project – this is the first time these beans have made it into a bar.

Exclusive, organic, single origin and handmade. They are traceable right back to our partner villages.

“This organic, super-lovely gourmet chocolate bar has doubled local income for the Ashaninka tribe in Peru and priced out loggers.”  Vivienne Westwood

Vivienne even gave a bar to the front row guests at her Paris Fashion Show. The bars get out more than us!

“Ensuring local people earn more from keeping the forest standing than they would from clearing it is the only way to save the rainforest. Vivienne’s support for the cacao growers is saving trees and empowering villages. It’s also helped to produce some of the world’s best chocolate. What could be better?” Matthew Owen, Cool Earth Director

To find out more about tasting this rainforest saving chocolate visit here.

Happy Easter,