Viva Cacao Ltd

THE ALCHEMIST

Deep in the mountains of southeastern British Columbia, a passionate woman is making and celebrating heart-opening nutritious and delicious chocolate surrounded by cedar trees, elk and white swans. Yup, white swans.

Beth Campbell is creating small-batch chocolate magic from her rural home in the Kootenays using superfoods, alternative sweeteners (such as coconut sugar) and mindfully-sourced and fairly-traded cacao. Oh and there’s definitely some serious love mixed in there too.

Beth was drawn into the world of small-batch artisan chocolate after getting frustrated about the lack of options on local store shelves. Although she always had a passion for cooking and baking, she had never made chocolate before. She threw caution to the wind, bought some molds and jumped right into what would become a life-changing endeavour.

She decided to combine her love of alchemy, medicinal ingredients and flavour combinations to bring you chocolate that’s real. Beth also found a way to accelerate the benefits of this magical superfood. She sees cacao as the ultimate delivery vehicle of medicinal substances into the body and she celebrates it.

Beth’s recipes are so unique, her creations so flavourful…that her chocolate is featured in stores across southeastern British Columbia.

Not only is she empowering people to make healthier chocolate choices at the till, Beth is determined to bring awareness to the issues involved in the chocolate industry — including slavery and inadequate working conditions for cacao farmers. Her goal is to use the abundance she has been blessed with to make a difference in the chocolate industry, and the farmers and consumers connected to it.

OUR MISSION

To produce high-quality, delicious and nutrient-dense chocolate products with business practices that support social justice and environmental sustainability.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Human Dignity

By working with cooperatives and cultivators that value human well-being, better living conditions and environmental sustainability, we are taking a stand against big industry. We are building awareness of the social injustices and rights violations that are rampant in the making of conventional chocolate. In providing an ethical alternative, we empower consumers to make a difference with their dollars.

Environmental Sustainability

One major obstacle was to source packaging that could be diverted from the landfill.  After some serious time-consuming research we finally found a solution. Our package contents are entirely compostable.  The exterior paper sleeves are made with FSC certified paper.  Tucked inside is our compostable cellulose wrapper made from wood pulp! Completely biodegradable, you can throw this baby right into your compost and walk away feeling good.

In our daily business practices, we seek to reduce waste by prioritizing reducing and reusing over recycling. Even our chocolate fits into this category – we can rework it when it goes wrong! http://www.futamuragroup.com/en/divisions/cellulose-films/products/natureflex

OUR CHOCOLATE

Our chocolate is accessible, alluring, handcrafted, and affordable. Healthy ingredients, conscious business practices, and social justice are at the core of our values. Viva Cacao is not only on a journey to inspire, we are on a journey to provide the consumer with chocolate that will do good and feel good in their bodies. Because Viva Cacao is a small-batch chocolate producer, each bar is activated with love, life and a sense of social justice and conscious awareness. Not only does it taste delicious — it’s chocolate you can feel good about. We look at cacao as the ultimate delivery vehicle of medicinal substances into the body and we celebrate it.

OUR PARTNERS

FEDECOVERA, our cacao producer, is made up of 42 partner-cooperatives, over 21 groups of small producers and 33,000 producing families. Their objective is to build the capacity of farmers and farmer organizations, build long-term partnerships with customers that share similar interests and values, and improve farmers’ competitiveness. FEDECOVERA has been doing this for more than 40 years, based in the city of Coban in Guatemala.

They value:

• Acting for human well-being
• Protecting and improving the environment and biodiversity
• Delivering customer satisfaction in order to build long-term relationships
• Integrity, fairness, independence and striving to always do the right thing

“Our Coban Guatemala cocoa beans come from small Mayan farmers pooling their cocoa beans together from the trees growing on the valleys leading to the very ancient town on the plateau above. The climate varies significantly from the valleys: warmer and more humid to the plateau where there is a drier sunnier climate — perfect for drying cocoa beans in the sun.

Coban was the center of the coffee growing region before one rediscovered they had another treasure: Heirloom cocoa varieties which have not been hybridized and replaced by varietals selected for their volume instead of flavours.

The excellent work done by the agronomist at the Mayan run-and-owned cooperative delivers a very round, warm, deep chocolatey flavor with just a hint of acidity. This flavour is powerful but mellow and lingers in your mouth long after you’ve melted the last piece of chocolate in your mouth. A lasting pleasant chocolatey memory, not tart or flat. Soft, round, like wet earth reminiscing of the deep soil at the bottom of the Guatemalan valleys.”

– Pierrick Chouard | Vintage Plantations Chocolate

Learn more about FEDECOVERA

OUR VIDEOS