Friday, December 31, 2010

Omanhene chocolate in Accra



Our group landed in Accra this afternoon pretty groggy, but we were up and moving for a New Years Eve dinner by the pool at our hotel. I looked down and was incredibly surprised to see Omanhene chocolates sitting at the table. If you go to Alterra a lot, you'll recognize it. It's a Milwaukee-based company that makes amazing socially-responsible chocolate and cocoa in Ghana. It's a relatively small company, so I surprised to see it was big in Ghana as it was in Milwaukee. Those moments when you travel half way across the world only to be greeted by something from so close to home are pretty awesome. I really Omanhene because it's one of the few dark chocolates I can find that tastes good (I tried to contact Omanhene before the trip to see if they offered tours, but they don't). I'm also pretty impressed with their business model. By large, Africa is a foreign aid-driven continent, which has its advantage as well as many disadvantages (more here). Fair-trade can be good, but also very limiting. Omanhene isn't certified "fair-trade" but can be considered "socially-responsible" (which in my mind is better) because it supports the UN Global Compact. You can read more about that here.

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