CHOCOLATE ARTISAN is a small Sydney business dedicated to changing the politics and ethics of chocolate – for the good of producers, the planet and you, the chocolate lover.
By working with our sister company, social enterprise
SOUTH PACIFIC CACAO, we support the Pacific Island communities that grow the cacao beans we craft by hand into chocolate.
Provenance, fairness and authenticity are key – we take pride in using award-winning produce from small artisan growers and producers in Australia and our Pacific region.
Our ingredients – cacao, nuts, coconut, dried fruits and more – are organic wherever possible, and all our chocolate, mylks, pastes and fillings are processed from raw ingredients in our Haberfield factory. We prioritise low global food miles and both businesses run on a zero-waste ethos.
We honour cacao as a nutritional superfood and repurpose the nibs and husks other chocolate makers discard, generating new income for the farmers and new taste experiences for you.
CHOCOLATE ARTISAN the person is chef Jessica Pedemont, who has devoted her 25-year career to working, studying, teaching and competing internationally in chocolate making and pastry.
Keen to explore the origins of the ingredients she worked with, Jessica visited Pacific Island cacao plantations. It was an eye-opening experience, revealing the conditions farmers endure to grow and harvest cacao and their struggle to be paid fairly in a cutthroat international market.
In 2018, partnering with the Solomon Islands cacao-farming collective
Makira Gold, she launched the social enterprise SOUTH PACIFIC CACAO, a premium bean-to bar chocolate business. In keeping with her company’s philosophy, Jessica can tell you the origin of every chocolate and cacao product she makes – even the names of the farmers.
At CHOCOLATE ARTISAN, we believe one chocolate bar is like a domino. If buying it helps you taste, understand and appreciate the difference between our nutrient-dense, hand-made chocolate and the stuff on supermarket shelves, that’s one goal down.
With the next bar, perhaps you’ll ask some questions: where does cheap, inferior chocolate come from? Do cacao farmers really work for barely subsistence wages? How is it dried – by suffocating smoky fires or by sun? Is it fumigated for transport? That last point is seldom discussed.
Thanks to our work with SOUTH PACIFIC CACAO, we have the answers you need to help you become a knowledgeable, ethical lover of fine artisan chocolate.
You can help CHOCOLATE ARTISAN change the chocolate world,
one bar at a time.