Global confectioners Mars and Nestle have joined a sustainable cocoaprogramme, which aims to establish a traceability system for allfarmers in the Ivory Coast.
The Good Inside Cocoa Programme, established by the Dutch non-profit organisation Utz Certified, aims to eliminate environmental and humanitarian problems such as child labour, deforestation and low salaries.

Asconsumer and regulatory concern over working conditions in Africaincreases, manufacturers can no longer ignore the responsibility theyhave towards some of the poorest workers in the world. Ona purely business level, Western firms are indeed conscious thatprotecting supply from the Ivory Cost and Ghana - which togetheraccount for 65 per cent of the world's net cocoa - is vital ...

Read the press release . (nutraingedients-usa.com)

Before Christmas I traveled to Washington, DC to appear on the Diane Rehm show produced by WAMU for NPR. Click to visit the WAMU website to listen to what was said.

This is my second article on how to buy chocolate for Yahoo! Personals.

Albert Einstein realized that the speed of light was one of the defining measures of the Universe. Chocolate is the other. We don't however, know Albert's thoughts about chocolate or whether or not be used it to help him calculate the speed of light. You can however, in your kitchen, with just a few simple tools and a bar of chocolate.

Remember E=mc, the beautiful little formula that wrapped up the theory of relativity? Well 'c' is the speed of light. And you can measure it. With chocolate. All you need is a microwave, a ruler (a metric version if you have one), a calculator (if your math skills are a little rusty and you don't trust them), and a bar of chocolate - cheap chocolate that you wouldn't eat because you're going to offer it up on the alter of science and it probably won't be edible when you're done..

Click to mosey on over to Null Hypothesis - the on-line "Journal of Unlikely Science" - to learn how.

A panel of experts recommend that more countries be recognized as fineor flavor cocoa producing countries in order to provide newopportunities for trade.
The suggestions were putforward by industry experts during a review of the International CocoaAgreement, 2001, which recognizes 17 countries as producers of eitherexclusively or partially fine or flavor cacao.

Theaim of this agreement is to promote international cooperation in theworld economy, to provide an appropriate framework for discussingrelated issues, and to contribute to strengthening the national cocoaeconomies of member countries.

Last month, an Ad hoc panel ofexperts on fine or flavour cocoa met in London to draw new conclusionson those countries exporting cocoa.

Read the panel's conclusions and recommendations (on FoodProductionDaily.com - European edition).

Cooking intensely delicious foodwith one of People magazine's "Sexiest Men Alive," could be a reality for fivecreative home chefs.

Green & Black's, the organic chocolatebrand, announced today a call-for-entries for the Green & Black's ChocolateChallenge . Home chefs across the country are invited to showcase their love oforganic chocolate by submitting an original five ingredient or less recipe that incorporates at least 2 ounces of Green & Black's chocolate, a photo oftheir prepared dish and an essay on their growing taste for organic and howtheir recipe wows their family and friends, for a chance to win a cookingsession with Curtis Stone, host of the Take Home Chef , which appears on TLC.

Click the link above to view the entire press release (at Yahoo! News) and learn where to submit entries.

COCOA: Cadbury seeks to reverse production declines by investing in areas where it gets crop.

According to this report , Cadbury Schweppes PLC plans to spend millions during the next few years to boost cocoa yields and to improve the lives of cocoa farmers,a move intended to guarantee a long-term supply of the most importantingredient in its signature candies. The investment willaffect an estimated 1 million cocoa farmers primarily in Ghana, butalso in India, Indonesia and the Caribbean, all areas where Cadburygets cocoa candies.

Research by the University of Sussex in England and funded by the candy maker has shown that the averageproduction for a cocoa farmer has dropped to only 40 percent ofpotential yield and that cocoa farming has become less attractive tothe next potential generation of farmers, according to a statement bythe company.

The money Cadbury plans to spend on schools, libraries and wells is intended to attract the next generation to cocoafarming. "In Ghana, there is a phrase 'Coco obatanpa,'which means 'Cocoa is a good parent. It looks after you,' " JamesBoateng, managing director of Cadbury Ghana, said in a statement. "Wehope with this initiative, Cadbury and our partners can be a goodparent to cocoa."

In the coming year, Cadbury will invest almost $2 million to establish the cocoa partnership, including $1.2million to build 850 wells, Matt Shattock, one of Cadbury's regionalpresidents, said at a news conference.

The chocolate enjoyed around the world today had its origins at least 3,100 years ago in Central America not as the sweet treat people now crave but as a celebratory beer-like beverage and status symbol, scientists said on Monday. Researchers identified residue of a chemical compound that comes exclusively from the cacao plant -- the source of chocolate -- in pottery vessels dating from about 1100 BC in Puerto Escondido, Honduras.

This pushed back by at least 500 years the earliest documented use of cacao, an important luxury commodity in Mesoamerica before European invaders arrived and now the basis of the modern chocolate industry.

"The earliest cacao beverages consumed at Puerto Escondido were likely produced by fermenting the sweet pulp surrounding the seeds," the scientists wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.The cacao brew consumed at the village of perhaps 200 to 300 people may have evolved into the chocolate beverage known from later in Mesoamerican history not by design but as "an accidental byproduct of some brewing," Cornell University's John Henderson said.