A Chocolate Bar With a Social Conscience

Working for 20 years as a defense attorney gave Shawn Askinosie decades to work on social justice issues. But when the time came for a career change, he knew his next move would involve two things: artisanal chocolate and serving the community. He launched Askinosie Chocolate, his specialty food company in 2007, and today he directly trades with cacao farmers across four continents and shares with them profits from the chocolate made with their beans. He also works with the farmers on post-harvest techniques and pays above the rate of fair trade prices.

Shawn Askinosie

Askinosie has been named “One of 14 Guys Who Are Saving the World” by O, The Oprah Magazine and awarded an honorary doctorate in public affairs from Missouri State University in recognition of his contributions.

Creating a new business model, however, has its challenges. “We’re swimming against the current of traditional business practices that thinks philanthropy must be separate from the core business,” he says. “But it’s more fulfilling this way, it’s more fun and the people that are in your organization find it more rewarding to focus on something bigger than profitability.”

Today, Askinosie Chocolate has 500 retail accounts with about 20 products—many of them award winners—including single-origin chocolate bars, white chocolate bars, chocolate nibs, baking ingredients and bulk items.

From the beginning Askinosie has looked for ways to educate people about his social passions. He started Chocolate University to inspire and educate local Springfield students about social entrepreneurship and the world. Recently, he brought a group of high-school students to Tenede, Tanzania, where they met with cacao farmers and worked on a self-sustaining school-lunch effort and assisting in implementing a video learning program on laptops and projectors. Chocolate University funded the first computer teacher, the first textbooks and a deep-water well for the village, and implemented the Empowered Girls club, aimed at increasing the retention and graduation rate of female students.

As a way to combat hunger, Askinosie Chocolates partners with parent-teacher associations in the countries where he sources his beans to create products to support local school-lunch programs. A great success is Tableya, a traditional Filipino hot chocolate beverage tablet created by the PTA members in the local community where he sources his beans. The profit from the product provides 185,000 lunches to kids who would otherwise go hungry. “We’re expected to get a new shipment of Tableya soon that will allow us to move to phase two of that program, which is supporting locally sourced foods and local economies,” he adds.