Chocolate Carbon Credits

New Zealand graphic designer Giles Barker and his wife, trained chef Vanessa Kettelwell established confectionary company Bloomsberry & Co in 2001 and already they’ve have had their chocolate bars whipped out “from under their noses and suddenly they’re all over the world.” Bloomsberry chocolates had been selling trendy, tongue-in-cheek chocolate bars with a conscience in the United States for less than two years when they were approached by Whole Foods to develop Climate Change Chocolate. Marketed as the “first taste of a lower-carbon lifestyle,” Bloomsberry donates 55 cents from each bar to TerraPass to pay for 133 pounds of carbon offsets, which is the average American’s daily carbon impact. “We’ve sold enough in the first quarter that it’s comparable to taking 900 cars off the road for a year,” said Kerry Laramie, vice president sales and marketing for Bloomsberry’s US division.