Ep 38: The Cocoa Runner - Spencer Hyman

Food Tribe

Today it’s all about the delicious creamy treat most of us love a little too much… chocolate! Chocolate has become something we don’t think too much about, it’s always available, wherever we go, in every grocery store around the world. But do we ever stop to think about what goes into a bar of chocolate, how it’s made and what we’re endorsing when we buy chocolate?

Despite cocoa only growing in a few countries, predominantly in Africa, it’s become this massive global industry worth over $100 billion, and a huge part of our food industry.

But like many things, our beloved choc does have a dark side…

You just have to watch the Rotten episode on Cocoa on Netflix to realize that things are not what they seem - a lot of clever marketing and a few very profitable companies have done a great job at selling us the chocolate dream when in reality it’s causing a lot of harm to entire societies and our planet.

But it’s not all bad - there’s a new wave of craft chocolate makers creating delicious, real chocolate in a fair, ethical way which means we can still enjoy chocolate without supporting the damaging side of the industry.

Today I’m speaking to Spencer Hyman who started the UK based company Cocoa Runners – and what they do is travel all over the world and find these makers and farmers and select the best bars so they can supply craft chocolate to people.

I met up with Spencer at his office here in London to talk more about the industry, get the lowdown on craft chocolate and why it’s better, hear the stories of some of these artisan makers, and a whole lot more interesting info about chocolate.

I know you’re going to find it super interesting and I really hope it makes you think about and reassess what you buy, how you consume chocolate and the impact these choices have.

Spencer is offering £10 off your first order of craft choc so you can head to cocoarunners.com and enter the code FT10. And yes, they deliver…