Endangered Species Cherries & Raspberries
“Based in Indianapolis, Endangered Species Chocolate (ESC) was established in 1993 to increase awareness of endangered species and the need to do more help support the efforts made in their conservation. ESC ethically source their cacao from family-owned, sustainable forest plantations and pay the growers a fair price.”
At least that’s what their website says.
This is all very worthy but what is particularly interesting is that their Supreme Dark Chocolate (with the chimpanzee on the wrapper) is going on the shuttle Discovery Flight STS-119 as per special request from the astronauts on board.
Unusually, there was no inviting dark chocolate aroma when the wrapper was opened.
Even more unusually, the dark 70% chocolate with raspberries was surprisingly bereft of taste. If forced to wear a blindfold and have another tasting battle with Ashleigh again, I’d be confident that neither of us would be able to guess what kind of dark chocolate it was or what the tiny, chewy and dry things were scattered inside it. There was no discernible flavour whatsoever; it was like sucking on something sort of melty and moist but that was it.
The milk chocolate with cherries was a much nicer offering. Very smooth, creamy and sweet with a clear emphasis on milk. The cherries unfortunately were few and far between and had no discernible taste whatsoever. They could have been pgymy currants for all my tongue could tell.
So whilst it is admirable that Endangered Species are doing the organic, fair trade, sustainable thing in bringing their product to you in cute wrappers, the actual chocolate inside the wrapper is sadly very underwhelming. When you also factor in their statement that 10% of the net profits are donated to worthy causes, you might as well donate the full $6.95 cost of this bar rather than eat bland chocolate and only have 69 cents passed on to charity.
Information
- Buy it online from:
- Contains dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids).
- Filed under cherry, dark chocolate, endangered species, fair trade, milk chocolate, organic, raspberry, us.
It’s sad to hear that these chocolates didn’t manage to deliver in flavour what you’d hoped Kath.
For charity chocolates like this to work, the effort really does need to be put into making the chocolate something that people will appreciate. If they don’t people will buy once and see it as a donation. If the chocolate was to actually impress, the end result would be a whole more in donations as it became something people really craved.
Your job is great. I would love to blog about food one day.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Michelle. If the product isn’t good enough to justify the premium price + donation, then it won’t be bought again, so it really needs to be of a quality that will make the buyer want to actually eat it again as well as assure themselves they’re buying something fair.
Ah Meji – here I sit, all sweaty after an eight kilometre run – this job does have its health hazards you know!
It’s all about the 88% bar with the panther on the label.