Green & Black's Organic Milk Chocolate Review

Typical price:

£1.68

We like:

The MD's willingness to tell us how the chocolate is made; the green creds; the smooth, comforting taste

We don't like:

The fact that the sugar flattens the cocoa taste; the fact that we can't verify the "better than Fairtrade" promise

SmartPlanet judgement:

Green & Black's has its fans, and it's easy to see why. This Soil Association-certified organic milk chocolate is a cut above the bog standard ones out there and it doesn't taste fatty or burnt. The MD claims the company pays well for the cocoa beans it buys, which is great, but it doesn't carry the Fairtrade Mark or have any independent auditing, which is not so great. The taste is sugary and fairly flat, too, which is why we like G&B's bars with bits in them a lot more.

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Contact:

Nice Car Company at http://www.greenandblacks.com/uk/index.php?flash=yes
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7633 5900

One of the first things we noticed about the Green & Black's milk chocolate bar was that it doesn't melt readily in the mouth. And while we waited for that to happen, we noticed a powerful element of sweetness. The use of lots of sugar isn't admired among connoisseurs -- the theory is that too much deadens the taste of the chocolate, not to mention making addicts of as all -- and we can't say we're wild about it either, as it flattened the nuances of the cocoa's flavour. This chocolate is, however, smooth under the tongue and has a likeable, comforting malty taste.

Green & Black's explained a bit about how it's made for us. The Trinitario beans for the milk bar come from two big cooperatives in the Dominican Republic, and the chocolate is manufactured in Italy by Icam (the site is in Italian), a large but family-owned company. While the bars sold in the US are currently Italian-made too, plans are afoot to establish an American manufacturing facility by 2009, thus reducing food miles.

G&B's Maya Gold was the UK's first Fairtrade product, but this milk bar doesn't carry the Mark. Dominic Lowe, MD for Green & Black's, told us: "We do better than Fairtrade, we're very confident in that. Almost forever we have paid more for our organic beans than is specified in the Fairtrade minimum. We want to do more in labour relations and environment, and we're looking at other schemes."

We're pleased that the MD explained Green & Black's approach to us, but getting hold of specifics from the company at large wasn't quite so easy. The hard info didn't arrive in time for our chocolate-chomping session. We'd love to know for sure that the G&B approach is "better than Fairtrade", but that's the problem when companies don't use established schemes -- there's no way of auditing the information and you just have to take the company's word for it.

Greenie-wise, the Green & Black's London office recycles and uses renewable energy -- through EDF's renewable energy programme -- and the company is just starting to offset business travel. Packaging is recyclable and G&B's carbon footprint is currently being sized up, too. Lowe predicts that the methane from the cows that produce the milk might be the biggest contributor. And, of course, the chocolate has the Soil Association's organic certification, which earns it good green marks.

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