Buy Bird-Friendly Chocolate for Your Tweetheart
Design by Alice Hurst
By Kris Hansen
Valentine’s Day is for tweethearts, especially those who get their special someone chocolate that is bird friendly.
Yes, you can now buy a dark-chocolate cherry or blueberry bar, bonbons, hot chocolate, and even baking chocolate from cocoa beans that have earned Smithsonian Bird Friendly certification. You just won’t find them in the candy aisle of your local grocery store.
Cocoa beans being solar dried on racks at Zorzal Cacao’s Central Fermentary. Photo by Kristen Reed, courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute
Only three U.S.-based chocolatiers make products using cocoa beans certified by the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI). The institute launched its bird-friendly inspection and certification program for coffee just under 30 years ago. In 2021, it expanded its program to chocolate, beginning with 17 farms in the Dominican Republic that are part of Zorzal Cacao.
More than 70% of the 1,019-acre Zorzal bird sanctuary and farming collective is designated as “forever wild,” meaning agriculture is not allowed. It is crucial habitat for the endangered Bicknell's Thrush as well as many other resident and migratory species. The sanctuary sought cocoa certification as a way to bring in needed revenue.
Bicknell’s Thrush. Photo by Darren Clark, part of the Macaulay Library at Cornell University
“They were a perfect pilot. They have influenced other landowners surrounding the preserve and have grown the collective. It continues to expand as more farmers learn about it and adopt the practices,” says Bryony Angell, who writes on birding and birding culture, in a podcast for the American Birding Association.
“Cocoa is the item that is bird-certified and, similar to coffee, it is grown in the tropics. These are areas that host endemic and native birds as well as migratory birds if there is sufficient canopy variety. These are two commodities, coffee and cocoa, that can be grown with adjacent biodiversity intact,” Angell says, although most of the time they aren’t.
Most cocoa beans in the world are grown in Ghana and the Ivory Coast in Africa, but those area have long been denuded in favor of monocultures. Instead, the Smithsonian seeks out small farmers in the Caribbean and Central America who are looking to diversity and make their product stand out.
Zorzal Cacao staff hand-sorting dried cocoa beans before bagging and shipping them. Photo by Charles Kerchner, courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute
“What’s so remarkable about the Smithsonian certification is that it is the gold standard,” she says. Products must be organic, fair trade and support local communities, and bird conservation has to be part of the outcome.
Three artisanal chocolatiers in the United States currently import certified cocoa beans, two of them with products labeled Zorzal. They are:
Angell, who orders all her chocolates from those retailers, says she can taste the difference: “If there’s a retail market that supports conservation and I can taste the results, that’s definitely where I’m going to put my money.”
Image courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute