Ethical retailer of the week: Green and Black’s

Green and Black’s produces chocolate products, using organic and Fairtrade ingredients, and has a strong focus on ethics.

The company was set up as a small business 1991 by Craig Sams and Jo Fairley, but gradually conquered the global market to become one of the world’s leading chocolate brands.

The name reflects the firm’s characteristics: green, as it has promoted organic farming since its foundation, and black for the colour of chocolate.

The company’s Maya Gold chocolate bar was the first product to receive the Fairtrade mark and the Worldaware Business Award in 1994, as the cocoa was bought by Maya farmers in Belize. The founders of Green & Black’s decided to involve Mayan communities as they discovered these were dismissed by a large chocolate company and left unemployed.

In 2005, British confectionery firm Cadbury purchased Green and Black’s. Cadbury was later taken over by multinational Mondelēz International (formerly Krafts Foods). The multinational recently increased sustainability efforts by stopping buying paper from Asia Pulp and Paper, a firm largely contested because of contribution to deforestation, despite a recent U-turn.

Green and Black’s is committed to follow ethical sourcing standards, to respect human rights and the environment. The company was named the coolest brand in the UK in 2011 for the fifth consecutive year by Coolbrands.

www.greenandblacks.co.uk