EPIC 2012 Fair Trade Profile: Zazubean

Zazubean Organic Chocolates will be participating in Fair Trade Vancouver’s Fair Trade Pavilion at this year’s EPIC 2012 Sustainability Living Expo: May 11-13. Join over 300 companies and organizations at the Vancouver Convention Centre to learn about what’s new in ethical and sustainable living. This year, we’ll also be asking you to think about what Fair Trade Steps you can take for 2012!

The following is a brief interview with Tiziana Ienna of Zazubean

What can you tell me about Zazubean?
Zazubean is a Vancouver-based company that produces a delicious line of chocolates that are 100% Organic, Fair-trade certified & packed with Super foods.

Where did the idea for Zazubean come from?
A group of women went on a bike trip around Galiano Island in 2005. While sitting in the hot tub eating chocolate, we felt there wasn't an actual chocolate on the market that was specifically for PMS. That's when Zazubean was born, we created a line of Functional chocolates one being the Lunatic that was made to cool women's monthly madness.

Does Zazubean have a particular philosophy behind its chocolate?
Our philosophy is in our motto "Good for the Growers" — being Fair-trade certified; "Good for the Planet" — being 100% Organic; "Good for You" — Being a health enhanced chocolate. We want to create a chocolate that's not only tastes amazing, but is good for you. We do this by increasing the nutritional content by adding superfoods like Acai berry to our flirt, Camu Camu to our Nutbar, Yerba Mate to our Hottie, and Maca to our Lunatic & Cheeky. All in a 72% rich dark chocolate that is already full of antioxidants.

What can readers expect to see from you at this year’s EPIC Show
We're happy to say that we are bigger and better. We changed our format from a 56g size to a 100g. Bursting with flavour, bringing back some of Zazubean’s customers-favourites, but now produced in Switzerland. What can I say, they make the best chocolate in the world.

What steps will you be making in the coming year to support Fair Trade?
We've switched our fair-trade certification from transfair to Fair-for-life. Fair-for-life takes fair-trade one step further to ensure of course a fair wage not only to the farmers, but all the way up the chain to treating your employees fairly. Being dedicated to Fair-trade, Zazubean supports all fair-trade events as much as possible.