Blog

To Our Customers, Chances are, you’ve seen last week’s viral Washington Post article, “Cocoa’s Child Labors” detailing how much of the world’s commercially produced chocolate is made from child labor (a lot). Sadly, this fact is not new to us. In fact, when I founded Askinosie Chocolate in 2005 I was inspired to base our company on Direct Trade practices specifically to combat the issues of child and slave labor in cocoa…

Our Coconut Milk Chocolate Bar took home the GOLD this past week! It was chosen by the Specialty Food Association out of thousands of entries from all over the country, across dozens of specialty food categories to receive this prestigious industry award. I am so proud of all of the hard work that went into making this vegan + dairy-free bar. The beans are from Ecuador and my good friend and long time farmer partner Vitaliano and his son Moises…

A couple of weeks ago I bought myself a gift: Paesano bread from my good friends at Zingerman’s Mail Order. I have been enjoying this rare treat immensely, grilled on the Big Green Egg last night and toasted this Labor Day morning…

I just returned from leading a group of 15 local high school students to visit cocoa farmers in a remote Tanzanian village on Lake Nyasa in the shadow of the Livingston Mountains. Since 2010 this journey has been part of our Chocolate University program inspiring local students that business can be a force for good in the world. More importantly we give students an opportunity to receive radical hospitality…

We leave in three days for rural Tanzania with 14 local high school students in tow. They’re an elite group of students who competed to be part of our Chocolate University high school program. We launched the project in 2009 and have been taking students to Tanzania ever since. Hold that thought…

Since our book launched in November I’ve been a guest on about 35 podcasts sharing the story and message of Meaningful Work. On one of my first near the end of the show the host asked me “What advice would you give to your younger self?

I bought a used Toyota 4Runner on Monday afternoon from a good friend I’ve known since high school who owns a car dealership here in Springfield. I totaled my other Toyota two weeks ago in my own driveway after an ice storm when a tree hit my car. I drove to work Tuesday morning looking forward to our staff huddle at 9am…

There are many things to consider when thinking about changing careers. I wrote an entire book about it but today I want to talk about something not in the book: changing careers and the loss of apparent power that goes with it…

I’m not sure where my chocolate business would be without a handful of mentors along the way who helped me avert danger and land safely time after time. Lately I’m thinking that having a mentor is not enough in business or life. Yes, we need mentors to help us navigate fill in the blank practical aspect of our business…

The market price of cocoa beans has remained unchanged in the last 30 years when adjusted for inflation.(1) Wait. What? Read that sentence again. And to make matters worse the world market price these days is dramatically low. As low as I have seen it in years…