Ecuador to Empire: the Journey of Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate
Learn about upcoming chocolate tastings at Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate by visiting www.GrocersDaughter.com.
By Molly Flerlage
Sun contributor
When Mimi Wheeler, founder of Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate in Empire, invited me to learn about chocolate with her I had no idea I’d still be working at the shop 10 years later. Moreover, I had no idea just how much I had to learn.
Chocolate making is an incredible journey. For Grocer’s Daughter this journey starts in Ecuador. Near the small town of Calceta, in western Ecuador, sits the Fortaleza Del Valle cocoa cooperative. Nearly 900 small, family cacao farms rely on the cooperative to obtain expensive Fair Trade and Organic certifications, carefully process their beans and ensure that they will be sold for a fair, living wage.
Working with Fortaleza Del Valle is great for us, too. This March I was lucky enough to travel to Ecuador with a team from Grocer’s Daughter and see firsthand the people and the places I’ve been hearing about for years. Many chocolatiers will never get this opportunity, even fewer get to experience the open and welcoming sentiments shared with us by both the cooperative and the farmers that represent it.
The unfortunate reality is that the global cocoa industry is plagued by child labor, enslavement and an unequal market in which large companies often demand products for prices below market value and below living wages. From the beginning, Mimi was committed to combating this reality and crafting a chocolate that was produced fairly — a principle that remained central to the business when Jody and DC Hayden bought Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate four years ago.
Over the past three years we have gone from simply sourcing fair-trade Ecuadorian chocolate to existing as a part of an incredible and unique direct trade relationship. We owe this special opportunity to the hard work of Jenny Samaniego, a Quito native who put everything she has into developing her company, Conexion, which officially launched this year.
Jenny connected with Mimi and Jody while they were guiding a trip through Ecuador several years ago. She had worked on the U.S. side of the chocolate industry for a while but had a dream of creating her own chocolate brand capable of showcasing the incredible flavors of Ecuadorian cacao. The trip inspired a friendship and partnership that deepened the Grocers Daughter connection to the country and commitment to highlighting the amazing products and people of Ecuador.
“This is the beginning of a new solidarity cocoa economy that benefits everyone along the value chain,” said Jody. “And we’re happy to be a small part of it! Entrepreneurs like Jenny Samaniego provide the vital link — offering high quality, direct trade chocolate to makers and chocolatiers, along with the opportunity to build relationships with the farmers.”
Through the direct trade model we are able to visit Ecuador each year, step onto the farms and into the cooperative office and to learn from these vital members of our supply chain. Fresh off a semester in Spain, I was able to utilize my Spanish and talk to the farmers about their successes, their concerns, their businesses and their lives.
Despite great geographical distance and cultural differences, we are connected by a common goal. We each have a role in creating a great product that we can feel good about and we are all equally important to this process. We are connected by chocolate.
In June, Grocer’s Daughter and Conexion received two international chocolate awards (this is a BIG deal!) but we all know that we couldn’t have done it without the hard work of the farmers and producers who help us bring our chocolate from Ecuador to Empire and from tree to tummy.
