Browsing: US Chocolate market

• Bittersweet consequences. Global chocolate value chains are fueling desertification across West Africa, a new report says. 
• As chocolate demand soars, Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans is paying a huge price with 80 percent of its forest cover lost.
• Corruption fueling illegal logging and deforestation of rainforests for cocoa farms

The raw material needed to make chocolate is cocoa beans, but West Africa, which produces 40 percent of the world’s produce, is destroying its rainforests at an unprecedented pace to feed global demand.

Already, Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans has lost 80 percent of its forest cover over in just sic decades, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports.

FAO’s Transparency, Traceability and Deforestation survey in the Ivorian cocoa supply belt shows that the unmonitored value chain of chocolate is leaving populations vulnerable to adverse effects of climate change.

Chocolate demand rising globally

Ugandan grown cocoa bean is producing one of kind chocolate that is about to make an inroad into USA providing the world with authentic African flavors through South African based chocolate maker De Villiers.

Classed among the finest cocoa beans in the world, the crops grown in the tropical, rainy Bundibugyo district of Western Uganda produce a cocoa bean rich in the complexity of flavors. De Villiers Chocolate uses only these UTZ Certified beans because supporting sustainable cocoa farming is vitally important to Africa’s future.

With their positioning as the first African-originated UTZ Certified chocolate brand, De Villiers are hoping to bring their distinctive new products and intriguing new flavors to the USA, with a diverse range designed to provide an indulgent exploration of sensory delights with unique African flavor profiles.

The new range created for the USA market underlines their commitment to quality and authenticity throughout their chocolate-making …