Best bar none
Conventionally grown cacao is still one of the most heavily sprayed food crops in the world. Organic was just beginning to be a buzzword at that time, so people were intrigued enough to buy and try it. Its sheer deliciousness brought them back for more.
In 1993, the company's orange-and-spice Maya Gold became the first product to carry the Fairtrade mark the shopper's guarantee that the farmers and growers who produce the cacao get a fairer price for their crops.
Today, awareness of fair trade issues means that most global coffee-shop empires offer a Fairtrade-marked cappuccino, while shoppers can get not only fairly traded chocolate and cocoa powder, but tea, coffee, bananas and more.
Unlike many of the opportunistic companies who jumped on the organic and fair trade bandwagon, Green & Black's didn't have to do anything special to get that Fairtrade mark: it was how they naturally did business.
It was only later they realised they had established a blueprint for socially responsible business towards which many big companies are striving today.
Green & Black's already paid a higher price than the world price because they offered a premium for organic beans. They gave the farmers the security of long-term contracts they desperately needed that security at a time when organic cocoa wasn't being traded on the world markets.
The other bonus is the impact fair trade has on a community. When Green & Black's first starting buying cacao from the Mayan Indians in Belize, children left school at 11 because their parents couldn't pay for secondary school.
Now, as a result of the secure income, the children are being educated to the age of 18 and some are even attending university.
As Cayetano Ico, the former chairman of the cooperative of farmers who produce the cacao for Maya Gold, once said: "When you buy a bar of Green & Black's, you're sending a child to school."
Shopping ethically really does change lives and communities for the better. But fairly traded products must also be tasty or shoppers won't buy them a second time.
Green & Black's was also the first 70% cocoa solids chocolate available in the UK and Ireland. On the continent, chocolate aficionados have long enjoyed the rich, bitter intensity of really dark chocolate. Here, the "dark" chocolate we all grew up with actually contained as little as 30% cocoa.
But since Green & Black's was launched, 70% dark chocolate has become the magic figure quoted by cookery writers and chefs in recipes that use chocolate.
Dark chocolate is generally the best to use for cooking because its intense flavour is not easily overpowered by competing flavours or other ingredients. Avoid dark chocolates that have less than 60% cocoa solids and are not made with natural vanilla.
Where milk chocolate is specified, try to use milk chocolate that has at least 34% cocoa solids. White chocolate only contains cocoa butter from the cacao bean, not the dark solids.
If white chocolate does not declare a percentage of cocoa solids, it will not contain cocoa butter. It will probably also not have natural vanilla in it, which gives Green & Black's its unique flavour. An unsweetened cocoa powder is best for baking.
Over the years Jo Fairley and her friends at Green & Black's have been collecting recipes from friends, chefs and celebrities, which they have at last published in the Green & Black's Cookbook, published by Kyle Cathie Publishers and edited by Caroline Jeremy. Rarely have I found so many tempting recipes under one cover.
