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The Rainforest Alliance Unveils Its First Line of Certified Sustainable Chocolate with a Gourmet Tasting in New YorkSeptember 22, 2004
New York, NY -- The Rainforest Alliance, an international conservation organization that certifies tropical agricultural and other products for environmental and social responsibility, unveiled the first line of certified chocolate. The occasion was marked with a gourmet tasting featuring the work of renowned pastry chefs.
"Cocoa Cultures: A Celebration of Sustainable Gourmet Chocolates" was held on September 21, 2004 at The River Café in Brooklyn. Pastry chefs Ellen Sternau of The River Café, Jean-Francois Bonnet of Daniel and George McKirdy of Veritas prepared sample creations with the new Rainforest Alliance Certified Plantations Arriba Chocolate, a premium chocolate from Ecuador. The afternoon featured chocolate banana marmalade cake, raspberry mousse with tempered chocolate, chocolate hazelnut tarts and other gourmet delicacies.
The world's finest tasting gourmet chocolate is produced from cocoa that grows in the shade and is tended by farmers who use small-scale, low-impact techniques. Encouraging sustainable cocoa farming in tropical countries and marketing the cocoa to consumers are effective ways of combating environmental damage from large-scale, full-sun, chemical-intensive bulk cocoa operations. Plantations Arriba Chocolate is distinguished by its exotic, jungle accents and aromas, a notable lack of acidity and bitterness, a higher concentration of cocoa than sugar and longer lasting flavor than ordinary bulk chocolate.
Ellen Sternau, pastry chef at the River Cafe, said of the Rainforest Alliance Certified Plantations chocolate, "It is like nothing I've ever tasted before. It has beautiful flavor and consistency. It also melts and tempers wonderfully and has an exquisite color." Among her preparations, Sternau used Plantations chocolate to create a chocolate replica of the Brooklyn Bridge, The River Café's signature pastry.
"Quality in chocolate can only happen with complete control over the key steps needed to unlock the cocoa flavor in the bean, and it starts by focusing with the farmers on the post-harvest process," explained Pierrick Chouard, developer of Plantations Arriba Chocolate and president of Vintage Chocolates, the importing division of Echocolates.com.
George McKirdy, pastry chef at New York's Veritas, was involved in the manufacturing process of Plantations Arriba Chocolate and noted that the Rainforest Alliance Certified chocolate is "more fluid and viscous than a typical chocolate. It has a nice balance, a nice feel on the palette, and nice fluidity."
Native Ecuadorian cocoa, from which Plantations Arriba is made, is particularly prized for its flavor and aroma. In the early 1900s, Ecuador was one of the world's leaders in growing and processing high quality cocoa for world markets. The country's long coastal plain was covered by lush forest, and cocoa farms flourished beneath the shade of the rainforest canopy. But various plant diseases arrived in the 1920s and later, a series of government disincentives for high-quality cocoa processing resulted in declines in production and quality. The native cocoa grown under the species-rich rainforest canopy became widely displaced by an inferior hybrid version that is grown in deforested, full-sun fields. While the bulk cocoa may produce a higher yield, the quality is usually inferior, bringing ever-lower prices, requiring agrochemical inputs and providing no habitat for wildlife.
The Rainforest Alliance and its Ecuadorian partner Conservación y Desarrollo (C&D), a leading nonprofit organization in the Sustainable Agriculture Network -- a coalition of conservation groups coordinated by the Rainforest Alliance -- have worked to restore Ecuador's native cocoa heritage since 1997, providing technical assistance for farmers and offering training for producers and processors. Thanks to the efforts of the Rainforest Alliance and C&D traditional cocoa farming is resurging in Ecuador. Individual small farmers in the C&D program, who might otherwise be at the mercy of price fluctuations in the volatile cocoa market, have organized into cooperatives with shared processing and sales facilities, computing, marketing and financial services. They have learned to properly sort, dry and ferment the beans using a cooperative processing facility, which reduces the number of defected, rotten cocoa beans and also happens to preserve the chocolate's anti-oxidant properties and its potassium content as well as its gourmet quality, helping them to command premium prices.
Based on the success of the Ecuadorian cocoa-growing communities, the C&D model is being replicated within Ecuador and internationally. As a result, the supply chain for high-quality, sustainable chocolate is growing and the products are becoming increasingly available to consumers. "Thanks to buyers like Vintage Chocolate, cocoa cooperatives that commit to total quality know that there is a market that rewards them for their efforts," said Tensie Whelan, executive director of the Rainforest Alliance.
Plantations Arriba Chocolate is already available in many finer restaurants,
such as New York's Les Halles, Daniel, Waldorf Astoria and Picholene,
and
Read more about the Rainforest Alliance's work in sustainable agriculture.
chocolate or to place an order.
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leading
caterers and retailers including Zabar's, Zingerman and Freshdirect.com.
It will also be marketed to independent retailers, specialty and health
food stores interested in promoting natural, heirloom, unadulterated chocolate.
The chocolate bars bear the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal, a guarantee
to chocoholics that the cocoa in Plantations Arriba was grown responsibly
and that it tastes great. 
