Women have always had a special place in the cacao world: in the Cacao & Spice logo is an image of an Aztec lady, which shows the ceremonial role women had in the preparation of cacao drinks.
In the centuries that followed women that worked in the cacao industry were marginalized. Nowadays women do more than half of all the work, while a small percentage of the profits
flow back to women. For example in the Ivory Coast (one of the biggest cacao producers in the world), only 20% of the profits flow back to women.
Luckily things are changing step by step. The list of female chocolate makers is slowly growing, and the first cacao cooperation's lead by women have been founded.
In 2008, Original Beans founded the first women's cacao cooperative - the Femmes de Virunga - in Eastern Congo. All our home made chocolate is made with cacao from Virunga!
We want to show some of these changes and put women in cacao and chocolate in a spotlight! So from March 8 (international women's day), until May 8th (Mothers Day) we will publish blogs and posts on social media about these fempreneurs.
We've also launched a gift box 'Women in Chocolate', so you can discover some of these female-lead chocolates yourself! Included in all boxes is a special 'Women in Chocolate' post card, and information about all the products in the boxes.
For every box one tree will be planted in the Virunga National Park! You can track your tree with a qr code.
This box is available until May only: https://www.cacaoandspice.com/product-page/women-in-chocolate-box
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