LOCAL AND GLOBAL UPDATES
The Life Cycle of a Cacao Pod
Here in Massachusetts, fall is coming, but it's not quite here. What's going on in Guatemala, the home of our delicious cacao? Read to find out about the life cycle of a cacao pod.
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Sweet Birch Herbals and Tangle Chocolate Collaboration
Tangle Chocolate’s best selling Winter in New England gift box is full of products to keep you cozy and healthy and happy through a cold winter. One of the items in the box is Elderberry Syrup, an immune booster, made by local herbalist Hannah Jacobson-Hardy of Sweet Birch Herbals in Ashfield, Massachusetts. Want to know more about it?
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A Different Perspective on Child Labor in West Africa
As you may already know, the chocolate industry has a long and terrible history of using slave labor, including forcing children to work in ways that can harm them. Part of the driving force behind Tangle Chocolate and many other fine chocolate makers is to end such practices. But this issue is more complex and nuanced than it seems at first glance. I recently attended a panel discussion on child labor in west Africa that presented the issue in a cultural context and from the point of view of cacao farmers and the children themselves, and want to share what I learned.
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Women in Chocolate: Alysha Kropf, Ecole Chocolat
For Alysha Kropf of Ecole Chocolat, an online culinary school for all things chocolate, a love of chocolate is in her genes. Read how she went from being "Sticker Girl" as a child, when she helped wrap holiday chocolate confections, to now being the program and marketing director at Ecole and a contributor to making the chocolate industry more sustainable and equitable.
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Women in Chocolate: Lindsay Tarnoff, Laughing Gull Chocolates
Lindsay Tarnoff is founder and chief chocolatier of Laughing Gull Chocolates in Rochester, New York—but she's also a passionate mom and social justice advocate who has found a way to fill all of these roles at the same time.
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CHOCOLATE NEWS ROUNDUP
Frogs and cicadas and chocolate... oh my! There have been some unusual and exciting chocolate news stories lately, from chocolate-covered cicadas to the tracking of deforestation. Here’s a recap of several of the stories that caught our eye here at Tangle Chocolate.
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THE CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
This week marked the first anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. One of the countless responses to his death was the formation of the Chocolate Industry for Social Justice, or CISJ. Read about how a group of craft chocolate makers and others are hoping to improve social justice up and down the chocolate supply chain.
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TANGLE IN THE NEWS!
A recent issue of the Massachusetts Jewish Ledger featured a story about Tangle. Initially, Stacey Dresner wanted to talk to me about the connection between chocolate and Judaism (yes! There is one!), but we ended up having a delightful larger conversation that you can read here.
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A MOTHER-DAUGHTER COLLAB WITH TANGLE CHOCOLATE
For Mother's Day 2021, we bring you a bio of the mother-daughter duo from Blue Skye Wellness who created "Light," the happy, energizing room spritzer included in Tangle Chocolate's gift box called "Let the Light In." It also contains a box of our premium handmade organic chocolate slivers, a bag of YUP coffee beans, and Amherst Soaps's Tangle Chocolate soap made from our cocoa husks and nibs.
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NEW COLLABORATION WITH AMHERST SOAPS
April 1, 2021. What do soap and chocolate have in common? Normally, not a lot. But Amherst Soaps’s new Tangle Chocolate bar uses the byproducts of our chocolate-making process, cocoa husks and dust, to add an exfoliant, slight natural scent, and beauty to this bar of luxurious soap. It's a perfect collaboration!
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Tangle Chocolate is Certified Kosher!
March 11, 2021
There are some dietary restrictions that are hard to accommodate as a chocolate maker. For example, I’ve not yet found a sugar-free option that I can fully embrace. But Tangle Chocolate works for those who are vegetarian, lactose free, gluten free or vegan—and now also for those who are kosher. Yay! Here's what the process involved.
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LAWSUIT FILED TO PROTECT CHILDREN IN THE CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY
On February 12, 2021, as we in the U.S were preparing to celebrate Valentine’s Day with chocolate in hand, the first-ever class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of some former child slaves against some of the world's largest cocoa companies. These companies are different than Tangle and other craft chocolate companies. Tangle wants consumers to know more so that they factor that human cost into the price of chocolate they buy.
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