2014: The Year We Switched to Sustainable Cocoa

July 31, 2017
2014: The Year We Switched to Sustainable Cocoa

As part of our 110th birthday celebration, we’re taking a look back at some historical (and historic!) moments in our Purdys timeline.

Three years ago, in 2014, we switched to sustainable cocoa. That means that everything we craft at Purdys helps support our cocoa farmer partners through community and farming improvements.

While creating an iconintroducing an originaladding milk chocolate to our lineupbuying a farm or trading shaving cream for chocolate shavings are all very sweet moments in our Purdys history, we knew we wanted to end our 110th birthday celebration with what we think is the most important one: switching to sustainable cocoa.

For Purdys, sustainable cocoa means helping to improve the lives of our cocoa farmer partners while protecting the environment today and for future generations.

For example, our Sustainable Cocoa Program has helped directly contribute to these improvements and special programs in rural cocoa-growing communities:

  • The expansion or new construction of 6 rural primary schools
  • The distribution of 675 school kits (i.e. pencils, notebooks)
  • 9 new primary classrooms, including desks, benches, blackboards and solar panels (for lighting)
  • 28 new cocoa tree nurseries, generating over 300,000 quality seedlings for farmers to start new cocoa plots or expand their farms
  • An entrepreneurship program for 200 women cocoa farmers
  • A special leadership training program attended by 188 women cocoa farmers

Our CEO Karen Flavelle has personally visited some of the co-ops to which our cocoa farmers belong—and witnessed firsthand the positive impact of our Sustainable Cocoa Program.

And if you’d like to read more on the two pillars that govern our Sustainable Cocoa Program, we’ve got plenty more facts, photos and videos for you.

It's been great fun taking a look back at our 110-year history with you (who knew time travel was this sweet?). Thank you for taking the journey with us. And here's to another 110 years.