Ever wonder where a luscious piece of chocolate came from? Though chocolate may be the food of the gods (literally, Theobroma cacao), the devil is in the details. Conventionally grown and purchased chocolate, like many imported commodities, can have a nasty backstory, including environmental degradation and child slave labor.

A new crop of socially conscious entrepreneurs wants to sweeten chocolate’s pedigree. Following in the coffee industry’s footsteps, some chocolate makers are adopting a direct-trade model, dealing one-on-one with small-scale cacao farmers and paying fair-trade prices to obtain superior beans while supporting cacao communities. “Direct trade is a lot of legwork, but you get much better quality ingredients, and you can also ensure the transparency of your supply chain,” says Alex Whitmore, cofounder of Taza, a direct-trade artisan chocolate maker in Somerville, Massachusetts. To ensure integrity, Taza prints a batch number on the back of every chocolate bar; buyers can enter the number on Taza’s website to trace exactly where the beans and other ingredients in that bar came from. And fair-trade wages make a huge difference: “It means farmers are more able to provide good working conditions and not rely on business practices such as child labor,” says Anna Ferry of Urban Trader, a fair-trade broker for urban-poor artisans “It protects kids, who don’t have a voice.” Fair trade also incorporates environmentally safe and sustainable farming methods—protecting both workers and Earth.

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