Sweetening the Palate with (Nearly) Guiltless Gourmet Chocolate

Courtesy of the Global Cocoa Project and Hub SoMa, I sampled about 20 different “eco chocolates”. Another key supporter of the event, Sweet Earth Chocolates, brought its cherry chipotle-truffle red foil-wrapped dark chocolate hearts to sample, as part of its ongoing Project Hope and Fairness

Tom Neuhaus is an unlikely Bay Area chocolate ecopreneur. Founding Sweet Earth Chocolates in 2004 with his sister, Joanne Currie, Tom is also an associate professor in the Food Science and Nutrition department at California Polytechnic State University (or “Cal Poly”) in San Luis Obispo, Ca. Their Twitter handle, @slochocolate, is written by Eve Neuhaus, who recently posted about their KCOY video segment on a Valentine’s Day with less Earth-impact

By all perceivable measures Sweet Earth Organic Chocolate, as a small business with a Fair Trade, “do no harm” business philosophy, is doing quite well as a profit center, too. It recently opened up a retail store that also does tours open to the public, created a host of new packaged products, including a $25 half-pound truffle that doubles as a birthday cake, and continues to make ardent strides in employing innovative, fair methods to improve the quality of life and work for its cocoa farmers with supply chain origins in Africa, Central and South America.

It’s a dream most of us can only hope to attain: doing a job you love that makes people and life better, allowing you to sleep at night, while under a roof of your own provision.

Life is sweet, for Tom Neuhaus and Sweet Earth Chocolates. It’s a model worth considering, if not simply supporting through purchase. Compared to the ambivalent supply gathering practices and monitoring of giants like Hershey’s, it’s almost guiltless gourmet.

But you still can’t eat the whole half-pound truffle without some regret!