Washington DC is the perfect city for Divine because our chocolate has a story to tell. And what better platform to have a story heard by government, by business, by individual citizens than in the nation’s capital. We think it’s a convincing story about how change is possible in the chocolate industry, change that can benefit farmers, help end poverty in West Africa, and inspire more companies to look at Fair Trade as a model for better business. We’re starting our week long launch celebration with a briefing on Capitol Hill with Comfort Kumeah, the national secretary for the Kuapa Kokoo Farmers Union in Ghana and our partners at Lutheran World Relief who believed so much in our story that they invested in Divine.

Comfort is here in the US to tell Divine's story. It’s a story that begins in Ghana where cocoa is grown under the shade canopy of the rainforest by family farmers on their 4-5 acres of land.

Cocoa is a precarious business. The cocoa pods and trees are susceptible to all manner of pest and disease that can spread quickly to destroy an entire crop. The work is hard. Cocoa pods are cut down from trees using machetes. The beans are fermented on the farms wrapped in banana leaves for 7 days, sometimes more. They are dried on mats under the sun for another 7 days and hand sorted by the farmers. After this the beans are carried to stations where they are weighed by a buying agent. If the buying agents are fair and haven’t rigged the scales in their own favor, and often they are not fair, the farmers might make about $250-$300 per year.

In contrast, the US chocolate market is worth about $13 billion and Americans are blessed with unimpeded access to some of the finest chocolates in the world. Most cocoa farmers in Ghana will never taste chocolate. They will see very little of that $13 billion, too.

Divine Chocolate set out to change this. First launched in 1998 in London, Divine is the only Fair Trade chocolate company to be significantly owned by cocoa farmers. Because they get a Fair Trade price for their beans, Kuapa Kokoo farmers have been able to invest in the future of their communities through building schools, providing clean water, mobile medical clinics, investing in training women to become entrepreneurs and earn money through side businesses when the cocoa season ends. And, because the farmers of Kuapa Kokoo in Ghana own part of the company they have a share in the profits and a way of accessing for the first time the part of the value chain where the money is made – the brand.

The Divine brand is what tells the story of cocoa farmers in Ghana – it is how the farmers communicate with consumers in the UK and in the US. The brand allows cocoa farmers to have a seat at the table and a say in the global.

And the story it tells is inspirational, and one that every chocolate lover can be part of simply through the chocolate she chooses to buy.

Comfort tells this story to a packed room today on Capitol Hill. Thanks to Congressman Payne for pulling this together. And thanks to everyone that came to hear our story and eat Divine Chocolate. We hope you all will join us in telling the Divine story to retailers, friends, family and all the chocolate lovers you know.