Fairer Trade Chocolate

Chocolate is the most widely consumed treat in the world and one of the world’s most common flavors. Chocolate begins in the Cocoa Belt, the narrow band of the globe around the equator that produces the vast majority of the raw beans. But when you think of the finest chocolate in the world, what countries do you think of? Switzerland, Belgium, France–not usually the countries from where chocolate originates. While Fair Trade is working to improve the livelihoods of these farmers, there is more value in the chocolate bar than the beans themselves. How can Fair Trade evolve to tell this more complex story and shift focus from helping desperate farmers to supporting growing countries?

One company, Omanhene, has shifted the value chain and started a chocolate factory producing chocolate from growing the beans to producing the chocolate bar in Ghana, West Africa, one of the world’s largest Cocoa bean producing nations. This powerful concept is not a simple story to tell when more and more chocolate is labeled Fair Trade and the image of Africa is not one of quality production, but instead of disease and poverty. In the NuVu studio, students will be working with Omanhene and Groupshot to tell this story of value chains and high quality African Craftsmanship through chocolate itself. Students will be asked to think beyond marketing and labeling to try and embed storytelling and relationships into Omanhene chocolate and their company. Students will work, not to sell more chocolate, but instead to create more educated chocolate consumers who understand where their chocolate comes from and what it means to the place that produced it.

Gwendolyn Floyd

Design Director, Groupshot

Groupshot is a Cambridge, MA, based design and development group which creates technology for informality. Groupshot develops and consults on technology projects around the world to bridge the benefits of local systems and communities with new opportunities and strategies. Groupshot has partnered with Sesame Workshops in India as our local partner in this studio.

Gwendolyn Floyd, Design Director at Groupshot, has worked for the past 7 years developing systems and strategies for social change and strategic technology implementation. Over the last three years she has focused on the developmental promise of technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship in emerging societies. In addition to advising and consulting development initiatives and organizations around the world, she has lectured at Harvard, Stanford, University of California San Diego, Hong Kong Polytechnic, the Institute for the Future and the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

Adam White

Development Director, Groupshot

Adam White, Development Director at Groupshot, has worked on projects relating to community development, technology, and design on 5 different continents. He has focused on ideas of communication and collaboration with a focus in geography, cities, international development, mobile phones, and open innovation. His research and projects range from settings including post-earthquake Port au Prince, to Pre-Olympics Beijing and London. He holds a masters degree in City Design and Social Science from the London School of Economics.

links:
Groupshot

photo credit:
André Karwath aka Aka