It’s chocolate week and we are celebrating Fairtrade.
BH Live is the South Coast’s leading operator of leisure and event venues; a social enterprise that designs and builds engaging experiences to inspire people and enrich lives.
Terrace Cafés and bars are in nearly 40 locations across the South of England including Bournemouth International Centre, Lighthouse Poole’s Centre for the Arts, Portsmouth Pyramids, and London Aquatics Centre and Copper Box Arena at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Divine Chocolate, Belu water, and our ethically sourced coffee beans, are sold in these venues every year, with a direct impact on farming communities around the world.
Divine Chocolate uses Fairtrade cocoa beans produced by the farmers of the Kuapa Kokoo co-operative in Ghana who co-own the Divine company and so benefit from a share of the company’s distributed profits. It also contains Fairtrade sugar from Malawi, real Fairtrade vanilla from Madagascar and other natural ingredients carefully sourced from growing communities around the world.
“When an organisation like BH Live chooses to sell Divine Chocolate, this contributes to the income that cocoa farmers receive – as the Kuapa Kokoo co-operative are the largest shareholder in Divine Chocolate, they receive the greatest share of the company’s profits says Charlotte Green, Marketing Director at Divine Chocolate “In addition Divine invests 2% of its annual turnover in key development programmes within the co-operative. To date more than £2 million has been invested in programmes that empower cocoa farmers, including adult literacy programmes for women, enabling them to take a more active role in their businesses and communities, and a radio programme that enables members to share news and join in with the co-operative more easily.”
Alex Robertson, BH Live’s Head of Hospitality adds, “By making one small procurement change in our Terrace Cafés, we are not only boosting the social impact we make locally, but are also making a significant difference to people’s lives much further afield.”
BH Live and Divine Chocolate are both social enterprises that trade to fulfill a social or environmental mission. They join more than 70,000 other social enterprises across the UK.
To find out more about BH Live visit bhlive.org.uk
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
Photo-caption:
Ama Kade, Kuapa farmer_credit Pete Pattisson (news home page)
Beatrice Asante KUAPA JAN 2009 016 (main article)
For more information about BH Live please contact:
Elizabeth Symmons, PR & Corporate Communications Executive
E: press.office@bhlive.org.uk
T: (01202) 055562
About BH Live
BH Live is the South Coast’s leading operator of leisure and event venues; a social enterprise that designs and builds engaging experiences to inspire people and enrich lives.
Its three social objectives are:
- to get more people more active
- to encourage more people to participate in cultural events and experiences.
- to promote economic benefit for its communities by generating business events and tourism.
With more than three million visits a year and over £36.5 million turnover, the organisation is changing lives – placing it at the heart of the UK’s growing social economy.
In 2015/16 BH Live hosted more than 500 events and sold over half a million cultural, sporting and entertainment tickets. 2.6 million leisure centre attendances were recorded and 118,000 conference and exhibition delegates welcomed into its venues.
This contributed an estimated £66.3 million to the local economy through business and cultural tourism.
Get social with us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter @BHLIVE_UK
About BH Live Hospitality
BH Live Hospitality provides event and retail services at leisure and cultural venues across Dorset, Hampshire, the South East and Greater London.
Terrace Cafés and bars operate at Bournemouth Pavilion, Bournemouth International Centre, Littledown, Pelhams, BH Live Active, Queen’s Park, Queen’s Park Golf Course, Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts and Portsmouth Pyramids.
Nearly 30 Terrace cafés, bars and vending outlets also operate across the South and Greater London in partnership with Fusion Lifestyle and GLL. Locations include London Aquatics Centre (LAC) and Copper Box Arena in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
For more visit bhlive.org.uk/hospitality
Get social with us on Facebook and Twitter @BHLIVE_UK
About Divine Chocolate
Gemma Hood, PR & Social Media Manager
Gemma@divinechocolate.com
Tel: +44 (0)207 378 6550
divinechocolate.com
- Divine chocolate is made with the finest quality Fairtrade cocoa beans from Kuapa Kokoo, a co-operative of smallholder farmers in Ghana. The cocoa is grown in the shade of the tropical rainforest, and slowly fermented and dried in the sun by the farmers, who take great pride in the chocolate company they co-own.
- Divine Chocolate Ltd is the only Fairtrade chocolate company that is also co-owned by cocoa farmers. Kuapa Kokoo, a co-operative of over 85,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana, benefit not only from the Fairtrade premium on the sale of their beans, but also receive a 44% share of Divine’s distributable profits giving the farmers more economic stability, as well as the increased influence in the cocoa industry company-ownership brings
- Kuapa Kokoo farmers receive 4 income streams from the cocoa they grow: a guaranteed minimum Fairtrade price for their cocoa ($2000/tonne) a Fairtrade social premium invested in their communities ($200/tonne) for things like building wells or health clinics, a 44% share of the profits and 2 members on the board, and in addition 2% of Divine turnover is invested in Producer Support & Development programmes like women’s literacy programmes and a radio programme to communicate with members – this more than doubles the impact of Fairtrade and Divine has contributed over £2m contributed to date.
- All Divine products carry the Fairtrade Mark. This is an independent guarantee certified by the Fairtrade Foundation that the ingredients are sourced under internationally agreed fair trade terms and conditions. These include a guaranteed, secure minimum price, an extra social premium payment for the farmers to invest in their own community programmes, long term trading contracts, decent health and safety conditions – all aimed at empowering farmers to make their own improvements to living standards and prospects for the future
- The UK chocolate market alone is worth approximately £4.1 billion a year (Mintel, 2015): if Fairtrade products can capture even a small proportion of that market, producers in developing countries gain real benefits.