Is Amano “Fair Trade” certified?
Unfortunately, the history of chocolate is full of unscrupulous companies and people who have engaged in unethical business practices. One of these is that the large companies created a lock on the industry so that they could dictate the price to the cocoa farmer. This meant that the farmers were always living on borderline poverty and often had to resort to child labor or poor farming practices in order to stay afloat and feed their families. Since Amano is concerned only with the highest quality cocoa beans, Amano always pays farmers and co-ops significantly more for their product than is set by the “fair trade” organizations. Unfortunately, it costs significant amounts of money for the farmers to become fair-trade certified in addition to it being a long drawn out process. Many farmers simply cannot afford it. At Amano, we believe in paying a premium price for premium cocoa beans. The prices we pay are measured in multiples (i.e., 3-4 times) the London Cocoa Terminal Market price. T
