The difference between commercial and ethical chocolate
You care about your body and what you put in it. We make our Haitian chocolate bars with organic and natural ingredients only. There are no nasty hidden ingredients, like artificial flavors, emulsifiers or soy lecithin.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only asks manufacturers to have 10% cacao in their chocolates. This is a much lower cacao percentage compared to our chocolate bars which start at 47% and go up to 90% cacao content.
Because many mainstream chocolate bars have a lower cocoa content, are made with poor quality cacao or lack flavors, their makers often use GMO sugar and artificial flavors to make the chocolate sweeter and more shelf-stable.
Hence when you shop at the grocery and pick up a chocolate bar, the packaging includes a list of ingredients you don’t recognize.
The Natural Ingredients in Our Askanya Chocolate Bars
We value transparency and only use natural and organic ingredients sourced ethically to craft our chocolates bars.
We currently use six high-quality ingredients:
- Cacao Beans
- Sugar (both Standard and Rapadou, Artisanal Cane Sugar)
- Cacao Butter
- Milk
- Oranges
- Limes
When you buy our Askanya Chocolates, you buy 100% natural, additive-free and preservative-free chocolates.
Benefits of Our Natural Ingredients
Haitian cacao and sugar are the two main ingredients in your delicious chocolate bars.
Did you know? Cacao is a superfood loaded with lots of natural minerals like magnesium, potassium and iron. It is also a natural appetite suppressant which helps to reduce your food cravings.
This means that you get lots of benefits when enjoying our chocolate bars:
- You won’t risk harmful side effects from the sugar in our handcrafted bars like you would from GMO sugars
- You satisfy your cravings with a smaller portion of our chocolate bars so you can enjoy them longer
- You feel happy and nourished instead of crashing from a sugar high
The Secret Behind Our Bitter-Free Dark Chocolate
Cacao Farms in Haiti
Our farmers grow cacao in small tropical gardens alongside many fruits and vegetables. Our cacao trees are ancestral and the beans absorb all the secondary flavors in the Haitian soil.
Our Haitian terroir is the secret behind how we:
- Achieve complex and rich flavors
- Avoid bitterness in our dark chocolate bars
- Always deliver a taste of Haiti in every bite
In other words, we bring you the top quality and ethical chocolate, made with wholesome ingredients. Amazing right?
We source our fermented and dried cacao beans from a network of more than 3000 farmers located in the North of Haiti. In 2017, the Paris Salon du Chocolat listed our cacao beans among the world Top 50 during the Cocoa Excellence Award.
You won't find any GMO sugars here. Our artisanal cane sugar, Rapadou, is a local delicacy in Haiti. This sugar is made from unprocessed sugar cane pressed naturally to harvest the sugar. Rapadou is totally free of any chemical or pesticide. Enjoy your chocolate bars without fear of stomach aches.
Our cacao butter brings out the creamiest flavors in our milk chocolate bars. This organic ingredient is important to create the smooth texture you get with every bite of our Paradis and Wanga Nègès flavors.
We use natural and GMO-free milk powder during our milk chocolate making process.
You find our glorious orange trees in the Nord of Haiti. During the limited winter season, the farmers handpick the ripe and sweet oranges. They reach our chocolate factory within 3 days of harvest allowing us to seize their ultimate flavor during the chocolate production process.
Our limes are grown in Croix des Bouquets, Haiti. The Abellard team pick and sort through small batches by hand with precious care before shipping them to us cross-country. We use the best ones in our signature dark lime chocolate.