Ecuador

Contact: Jaquelyn Rieke
Nutty Steph’s, LLC
sales@nuttystephs.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: OCTOBER 7, 2011
NUTTY STEPH’S VERMONT GRANOLA AND CHOCOLATE FACTORY
OFFERS CHOCOLATE FROM A TRUSTED ECUADORIAN COOPERATIVE

Montpelier, VT - Making a huge leap in her mission to produce socially and environmentally responsible foods for Vermonters, Nutty Steph’s owner Jaquelyn Rieke has become the ﬁrst Vermont chocolatier to source chocolate directly from its country of origin. APROCANE is a cooperative of cacao growers in northwestern Ecuador that formed to unite eight communities in the Esmeraldas Province in a mission to secure a livelihood without clear-cutting ancient rain forests. Through Cacaoyere, a company in Quito, Ecuador that buys and processes APROCANE beans into chocolate, Nutty Steph’s is now importing a product that has been grown in sustainable, biodiverse forest plantations by self employed farmers who own their land.

“Buying chocolate directly from countries where cacao is grown has culinary, economic, environmental and social advantages to conventional methods of procurement,” Rieke explains. “Direct sourcing from a chocolate growing country is an opportunity that Nutty Steph’s has been seeking since the inception of our chocolate operation in 2008, and I am exceedingly proud to partner with Cacaoyere not only in sourcing single origin chocolate, but in bringing awareness about the pitfalls of “big chocolate” to my customers.” Knowing that two thirds of the world’s cacao is exported from the Ivory Coast where over 100,000 children work, often under poor conditions, eating chocolate has become an ethical dilemma for consumers of most chocolate available in America.

Nutty Steph’s found Cacaoyere chocolate at a trade show in 2008 and experienced love at ﬁrst bite. “Not even aware of the source and story behind it, I just knew that this was the most delicious chocolate I’d ever tasted. I had to have more of it.” At that point, Cacaoyere was just starting to connect with the American market, which was known for having a less sophisticated chocolate palate than the more reﬁned European consumers. Upon learning that nobody in the United States was importing Cacaoyere chocolate, Rieke took matters into her own hands and in May 2011 she travelled to Ecuador to tour the processing facility and meet the farmers and producers. In Esmeraldas, she visited plantations owned by some of the 22 families comprising APROCANE that grow a particularly aromatic variety of cacao beans--Arriba Nacional. These small biodiverse rainforest plots are tended by hand and machete using no chemicals or pesticides to control fungus and maintain plant health.

Before the formation of APROCANE, illegal clearcutting was rampant in the area. “It was clear to us that we had to do something to stop losing our forests to logging,” states APROCANE managing director Nestor Lemos. “Every family here made its living from logging, and sooner or later we would have destroyed our own livelihoods. What would our children have lived from?” Between 1991 and 2000, 36% of the forest in Esmeraldas disappeared due to mostly illegal logging until a German Company for International Cooperation, GTZ, stepped in and offered a ﬁnancial incentive for local people to start preserving their resources. Communities declare a choice patch of land “untouchable” and receive compensation for overseeing its preservation.

Community members are trained in forest management and taught to expand cacao plots, continually perfecting their farming techniques in areas not under reserve. This is signiﬁcant in reducing the occurrence of logging because cacao needs shade and thrives as an understory plant in biodiverse forests. Cacao production is slowly taking the place of destructive logging as a main source of income for the people in Esmeraldas. The growers’ cooperative enables farmers to market their beans at a fair price, often directly to chocolatiers thus bypassing the middlemen. Over the years, the incomes of APROCANE producers have increased by 60%. This ﬁnancial security has helped communities in Esmeraldas increase their standard of living while maintaining biodiversity in their forests. Deep in the lush Ecuadorian forest, Augustin Mercado, a seasoned cacao farmer of over 50 years, advises his 28 children to “never lose their attachment to cocoa. It lives a long life and offers a secure future.”

By traveling to Ecuador to investigate the source of Cacaoyere’s intensely unique chocolate, Rieke found a land nourished and loved by the farmers working it, and a product she could feel good about importing. Starting in February 2012, Nutty Steph’s will offer tours to visit the plantations and production facilities that produce the most delicious--and ethically responsible--chocolate available on the US market.

About Nutty Steph’s:
Now in its 8th year, Nutty Steph’s is a small Vermont food producer dedicated to the advancement of handmade food production, community living, and other endangered basic human skills. In 2008, with 5 years of granola acclaim to build on, Nutty Steph’s opened a small shop ﬁlled with live conversation and small-batch culinary delights. For more information, visit www.nuttystephs.com.

About Cacoyere:
Cacoyere is a small factory in Quito that custom formulates bulk cases of dark chocolates for Nutty Steph’s, their sole importer to the US. They are pure dark chocolates made from beans of wild Criollo and Arriba Nacional cacao trees. The chocolates come in 4 progressively darker varieties: 63%, 71%, 82% and 91% cacao, each of which use beans that hail from a different region of the country. The regional exclusion of the beans used in each of the chocolates gives them each a profoundly distinct ﬂavor

Points of Interest:
* Nutty Steph’s Vermont Granola and Chocolate Factory is the ﬁrst Vermont business to import cacao directly from the source, through Cacoyere. This direct importer relationship allows Nutty Steph’s to offer the Ecuadorian chocolate to the US market at extremely affordable prices.
* Nutty Steph’s is slated to begin Ecuadorian Chocolate Tours in February, 2012. Travelers will have the rare opportunity to visit 2 Ecuadorian cacao-growing regions, observe the lush, natural growing conditions at each one, and meet folks that tend - and own - the trees.
* According to the U.S. Department of State, more than 109,000 children were working on cocoa farms alone in Ivory Coast in "the worst forms of child labor.” Two thirds of the world’s cocoa supply is from Ivory Coast.
* Arriba Nacional Cacao is a rare type of cacao, found only in Ecuador. It is know for its naturally ﬂoral ﬂavor and an almost complete absence of bitterness. It produces a sweeter, smoother chocolate given the same amount of sugar as a different bean.
* The Cacaoyere factory pays the APROCANE growers’ cooperative a price 45% higher than the standard price for cacao. This ensures the ﬁnest cacao beans possible, grown in harmony with fruit and timber trees and tropical woodlands. Once at the factory, every batch of beans is sorted by hand before being processed.