In this episode of Good in Motion, Juliette chats with Mara Mennicken, the founder of The GOOD Chocolatier, about her journey from chocolate lover to social entrepreneur.

Mara's dedication to fair trade, organic practices, and social impact led her to establish a business that prioritizes sustainability and ethical practices. She emphasizes the importance of asset-based community development and her commitment to creating meaningful employment opportunities. Mara's passion for environmental sustainability shines through her decision to switch to compostable packaging, despite the challenges it presents.

By listening to this episode, you'll gain valuable insights into how businesses can make a positive impact while prioritizing sustainability. Mara's story inspires consumers to support ethical and sustainable practices in their purchases.

I would say, in my opinion, is that you can't have a quality craft chocolate without doing it organic and fair trade because you're not going to ever achieve the same flavour notes. —Mara Mennicken

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Learn how supporting socially conscious businesses can lead to a more sustainable future.
• Understand how different growing conditions affect the taste of your favorite products.
• Appreciate why choosing organic and fair trade items makes a difference in the world.
• Explore how biodiversity enhances the richness and complexity of flavours in chocolate.

Meet Mara Mennicken

Mara Mennicken is the founder of The GOOD Chocolatier, a social enterprise dedicated to sustainable and ethical practices. With a background in community leadership and social change, Mara's journey from Germany to Canada led her to establish a business focused on creating positive impact. The GOOD Chocolatier not only offers delightful, healthy, and ethical chocolates but also integrates fair trade, organic practices, and provides employment opportunities for marginalized communities, particularly individuals on the autism spectrum. Mara's dedication to fostering social and environmental good through her business sets a remarkable example in the realm of social entrepreneurship.

My name is Juliette, and I'm obsessed with all things self development, goal setting, health and sustainability. Originally from France, I made the move to Canada with a vision to design my dream balanced life. On this podcast, I share with you everything I've learned along the way. The challenges, the less, and of course, the successes. It's also my chance to sit down with local experts, diving into the services and products that have the power to transform our lives.

So grab your favorite headphones, stay hydrated, and get ready to learn simple tips that will elevate your life. Welcome to good in motion. Hi there, my wonderful listeners. In today's episode, we're diving into the world of the good chocolatier with the incredible Mara Mennicken. She's the brains and heart behind this chocolate haven with the mission for top notch, healthy, and ethical treats.

From a chocolate loving individual to a social entrepreneur, Mara's journey is as sweet as her creations. Tune in to hear about her passion for fair trade, organic practices, and the positive impact she's making on the autism spectrum community in Vancouver. Now, before we get started, a quick heads up. This conversation was recorded about six months ago. A lot has happened since then, but the information Mara shares is timeless.

And if you're tuning in during February 2024, brace yourselves for a Valentine's Day treat from the good chocolateier. There is a new bar in town, and it's the vanilla Rose bar. While I haven't had the chance to try it yet, since it's being released as this episode airs, I can't wait to add it to my next order. Without waiting any longer, let's unwrap the story behind the good chocolate chair with Mara.

Hello, Mara. Thank you for being here today. You're my very first guest on good in motion, my new podcast, and super excited to get started today, so let's just jump right in. Could you give us a brief introduction about who you are and what you do? Yes.

I'm so happy I'm the first guest. Thank you so much for asking. I'm excited we're doing this. And my company, for those that haven't heard, is the good chocolateier. And I started it in 2017.

I took it over from a french chocolateier here in Vancouver. I was born and raised in Germany and then came over to Canada and just decided I wanted to stay here. My intention was never really to start a business. I kind of came full circle with really not liking business for the obvious reasons of environmental destruction and a lot of the unethical things that were happening behind the scenes. So my path when I went to university was actually community leadership and social change.

So it was pretty much the opposite. I don't want to say it was just non for profit sector, but it was really working with marginalized people and seeing what they need. There was a bit of sustainability in. I studied sustainable design in Cologne, before that in Germany. So both the sustainable angle from environment and the sustainable angle from social impact kind of is what I was interested in.

And that was often not seen in business. So when during my studies, I learned about social enterprises, I just thought, okay, that might be the solution, because most of the bad is coming from business. So if we now couple business with social and environmental good, then we can go as we were, just with better results. So now that has been five and a half years. And we make healthy and ethical chocolates.

Of course, they are lovely, they taste amazing. And we are also a social enterprise, just as I said. Most people, I would say, don't know right away about the social impact and composable packaging, like kind of all the boxes that it ticks for my values. I wouldn't say that's in the forefront of marketing, but it's generally just really amazing chocolate that people do notice the difference in quality when they eat it. And that's at the forefront.

And that's the reason, I guess, people keep buying. And that's the reason how we can make social impact with good chocolate. Yeah, totally. And first, I want to say it's really impressive because I feel that today we're definitely more used to businesses that are putting their values like we know what their values are. But back, you say five years ago, five years ago, it was, I feel very new and forward.

So congratulations for this. Thank you. How would you define social enterprise? Generally speaking, it's still a business, but it's a business that besides financial rewards and profits, it also seeks social and environmental good. So we speak about the bottom line.

If it's just traditional business, right, they got to always just increase the bottom line, increase shareholder value just so the profits are growing. And of course, you have a service or a product. But now in social enterprises, we have three bottom lines. So we also say triple bottom line companies. If we do make profits, it goes hand in hand with making environmental and social good.

So it's so intertwined that actually they can't be taken apart in a social enterprise. And if you have your non for profits, for example, on the left side, your regular traditional business, on the right side, social enterprise are really in the middle. We don't rely on funding because we sell our own goods and services, but we have the same mission as non for profits. Are there regulations for social enterprises like we can see for not for profits? There are some, I would say, like with everything, you just got to look into the company and really convince yourself and learn about the story.

I think that's often what it dies down to. But there's definitely, like I mentioned the B Corp logo, which is incredibly good. I went through the questionnaire and we're kind of there. Actually, I just have to go through the million questions. Wow, so you're actually going through it right now.

You're taking a look. Yeah. I think last year I decided that we're social enterprise, we tick all the boxes. So it can't be this hard. But there's a lot of proof, obviously, that you have to gather and a few things that impressed me.

And actually, even by going through it made me even think of how can I improve our company, which is already pretty high up there in terms of social good. Even as your suppliers, do you source from other women owned businesses, do you source from local businesses? Ethical? So it really goes all the layers down. So I think that as a consumer is definitely something that you can trust.

And I feel the first steps, especially when it comes to consumer goods and CPG. So food products are organic and fair trade for me. I come from a very certificate, skeptical background. I feel like whatever I saw is like you can always find a loophole and trick and I don't trust it. But now that we're fair trade certified and actually I do know more about also the process.

Yes, there's things that you can just do to the bare minimum, but even the bare minimum does really, really good compared to the conventional ways of working. So I think in food, organic and fair trade is definitely what I look out for. And then for other, even cosmetics and stuff, cruelty free, I think all of the different products have their logos that make it more positive because all these industries have kind of the one dark side and you got to know the dark side. Just to make sure. I understand correctly, you're saying that even if those labels have bare minimums to be able to use them, it's pretty good even if you reach their bare minimum.

Yeah. Okay. Totally. So for example, organic, right? My assumption was just like, okay, it's for my health, it's for the environment, I guess more ecosystems thriving because of it.

But even in organic, if you are not allowed to use herbicides, pesticides and all of that, the workers are way safer. So you also have these regulations that do social good under the organic label that we don't really think about or see. But having it organic makes the whole supply chain way safer. And you're not going to have, imagine this, women working on the fields with toxins all day long. Their kids might have problems or themselves.

And so I think even organic does make a huge difference in terms of social good. Yeah, it's good to highlight this. I've never thought about it and even socially, but at the end of the day, you're eating that product, so it's healthier for you as well. Of course. Yeah.

I think everyone has their different reasons why they do things. Let's say the typical vegan is one does it for ethical reasons, the other does it for health reasons, and the other one might do it for just environmental sustainability. Right. And they're all good. They're all equally good.

You just have to see what motivates you to really try to purchase more towards organic. Yeah, we all have our own reasons. Just to sum up what you said, I love that you mentioned the B Corp aspect because I guess it gives a guideline for businesses and that moves away from greenwashing because it sounded like when you describe social enterprises, we have to put a lot of trust as consumers in what the companies are advertising. And we are a bit limited when it comes to having the time, the motivation to go and check if what they're saying is true or if they're using buzwords. But at least with what I understand with B Corp, there are so many strict guidelines that I feel as a consumer, I'm more protected at least.

And it goes all the different layers. Right? How do you make your decisions on a daily basis? Is everyone integrated? Not just how do you pay your workers, but how do you enable them to thrive in their own lives?

And there's so many layers to it that are so beautiful. So even seeing the questionnaire sometimes, right. No matter if you have a business and your intention might not be to be a B Corp, but just even knowing what could you improve if you wanted to, right. These questions really get you thinking about different layers and aspects that you probably are so under the surface you probably have never thought about. So I do trust that label a lot.

But for myself, even I had to read into it and go through the questionnaire in order to say, like, okay, this is good. I do trust it. I'm excited about the B Corp aspect and curious to see how it goes. Could you maybe tell us a bit more about which aspect of the good chocolateier is a social enterprise. Totally.

This is just based on personal background, right? Social enterprises can take so many shapes and forms. It says social enterprise, but it's really also the environmental side. What I was bothered the most with in society in my times of studies and seeing the world, was how unequal the job opportunities are for different people that have slipped in a certain category without actually them wanting it or the right. Just like a label of, let's say, even single moms, seniors, people with autism, people that got jobless and were homeless for a year, it's impossible for them to get out of there.

And I just saw so much unjust with these people I was working with and read lots of studies and even interviewed them. And even the seniors, it wasn't like they didn't want to work. It was mostly, I want to work, but there's no work out there for me. So for me, employment has always been the biggest pain point of mine, and that's why I wanted to solve the employment situation or help solve the employment situation. So just by purchasing a chocolate bar, we help employ people with autism because they do all our packaging.

And it sounds super simple. Obviously, that idea with the packaging, it wasn't me, top down saying, I need somebody to package my chocolate bar who can do it. Social enterprise is a mutual decision based on whoever is building the partnership. So I decided after a year into the business that social enterprise is the way. But obviously I had to learn a lot about business itself, so I didn't jump into it right away.

The one thing to be aware of is that social enterprise are there to solve a problem. So if you just think like, oh, I'm going to have a social enterprise, and then a year later you quit, it's the opposite of what you want to achieve. So I had to make sure I have a foundation and then see, like, okay, how now it's stable. Where can I do the social aspect? And see, was it a personal requirement for yourself, or was it something that was asked by the ass station on the other side?

Both. So that's why it worked, and that's why the partnership has been there since inception, pretty much. And that question I get often, like, how do you even start? Right? How do you start to have a social enterprise?

And in my case, because I was studying community leadership and social change, I did work with a lot of different community groups during my studies. So when I felt that I was ready, I just went back to all of these community groups, like the neighborhood house for seniors. I went to the people autism. I went to another social enterprise that helps homeless people in construction work. So I just built a mini network.

It wasn't even network, just the organization I volunteered for. And until I found that one organization and they're like, oh, my God, thank you. You are here. We have this problem that we can't send our folks outside for work because they need one supervisor per student. And I'm saying student, but it's actually.

So the organization for neurodiverse adults I work with, they have a high school and they have an adult program in the high school. They learn lots of different things and some folks are being independent afterwards, but a lot of them still need more care and individual support. They can't live by themselves. They can't take the bus alone and all of these things. So they can work.

Though they're over 18, they want to work and they are within that organization. I now come to them and I bring them the packaging so that they can do work without having all these difficulties that were identified by the director of the organization. So it was just a conversation we had many times. And I said, this is the business. These are all the things we are doing.

These are all the things that we can work on together. What is that one point that you feel actually you guys are better at than anyone else? Right? This is asset based community development. So I could go to them and say, like I said in the beginning, here's packaging.

Can you do that for me? But that's not a mutual partnership. A mutual partnership is. Let's go find what actually you are better at, what you're excited about, what you're great at, and how does this work in my business and can help me. So packaging, I've had many people previously helping me to package wasn't always perfect.

You need an eye for detail. You need to repeat the same thing over and over and over. And there's nobody better to do that packaging than them because they are just so accurate and they never lose that accuracy. Right. After an hour, they're not tired.

No, same. The sticker is exactly there. It's exactly packaged in that way. And it's around six to seven people right now that we employ for packaging. It always rotates.

Right. It's not a full time job for one person because it's based on their energy level and they do all the packaging and they're trained. And some of them have never had a job before. And so they're based in Vancouver as. Yeah, totally.

So the type of social enterprise that we have an employment based social enterprise, which that's where my heart is and where I think is super important. Yeah. Thank you for sharing the transparency that the time it takes to put together this process. And also, I'm glad that your time spent with your studies and being around all these different communities helped with your business. It sounds perfect and it sounds like it takes time, but it worked out great.

So you mentioned previously that a social enterprise, there is that social aspect, but there is also the environment aspect to it. Of course, when we think about, well, chocolate or consumable goods, we think about packaging, which I think everybody has heard of the environmental impact of packaging. So how do you address this specific issue? So in the beginning of the business, actually there was not much compostable packaging out there. But once I learned there is compostable Cellophane, I switched right away.

And it wasn't even in our marketing. Nobody knew. It was just for my own sake. I know this is compostable. Even if you throw it in the regular garbage, much better.

There's not going to be any gas, there's. Right. Even if it's in landfill, it's going to compost there much better than plastic or degrade better. So for me, because I had that sustainable side. And also I grew up in Germany where we have like six garbage cans in the house.

And this was even a new thing in my university. I was one of the teams that showed people how to separate the garbage because it's just so many international students. And that was the first time we had zero waste stations. And going back to the packaging of our product, it took a long time. It took two and a half years to really do the rebrand.

And we just came out with a new packaging and printed and everything in March of 2023. So this year, and my drive was always, let's make it 100% compostable. This is the best. But obviously it's a food product and there's certain things you have to just be careful with temperature in the compostable product as well. I really wanted a compostable pouch.

So you see now these a little bit harder plastic, but they're actually compostable. But it was not working out with a social enterprise aspect of our company because I want to eliminate more packaging in general, no matter if it's paper cardboard, just have as minimal as possible. So one layer was my goal and have that compostable. But because the packaging is also the social enterprise aspect, I would eliminate their jobs because we have to do the first layer in our facility. And then when it's food safe.

They can do the second layer. So I struggled with that for a long time because both of these directions, I couldn't kind of find the middle ground. But now the inside is compostable. It's fully compostable. Cellophane and backyard compostable in 60 days, made out of sustainably sourced wood pulp.

And I think some of them are also made out of sugar cane, actually. And then we have the outside, which is just regular cardboard, FSC sustainable forest certified. So you can just put the outside in the paper recycling and the inside in the compost. Yeah. This is fantastic.

I see more of those type of packaging compostable. It's always like a surprise. You see it on it and you're like, what, really? You put it in your compost bin and you're like, I don't know. I guess so.

And you're just putting it there. And I feel like I have to justify to you, if there is someone else living with me, I have to say, I know. Correct. It's so true. And because it's not really the most common thing I had in my commercial kitchen, where I used to share, and even to this point, I still share with an organic supermarket.

I had some chocolate bars I had to remelt and take the packaging off and threw it all in the organic bin. And then the next day, somebody had taken out all those compostable wrappers and put in the regular bin and said, like, oh, Mara, like, this is not compostable. This is the compost bin. And then I had to explain to them. So I had definitely had incidents like that.

My interest, I think, in sustainability started from the environmental aspect, for sure. And I love garbage and figure out how even on a municipal level, it works and where does it go? Because it's so new in Canada, it's actually not streamlined. Right. We're next to Burnaby.

They might have a different system. North Vancouver might have a different system. So it's very, very difficult to actually compost and recycle and have just a streamlined, sustainable garbage system like all the municipalities here struggle with. And I'm not up to date yet, but when I looked it up, and I was in this sustainability team in my university and stuff, so we did waste audits and checked how much the university is producing and where does it go. And we visited facilities, and there was one company that actually just made those machines, the commercial composters.

And it was in a time where biodegradable cutlery and these Clamshells and stuff just came out and they said it's a nightmare because we now have all these compostable biodegradable, which biodegradable will just avoid that altogether. But all of the garbage bins in the machines went out with 80% of all these new biodegradable cutleries and stuff. But the machines can't even process it because you just have to be aware that if you have your compostable wrapper or whatever it is, you still have 80% food scraps and 20% is some of that newer material, then the machines can process this because it gets heated up and it still needs something bacteria to compost. Right. With just that stuff, it cannot possibly compost.

So I feel it's always a catch up, like the consumer needs to. Obviously, I think it's between the producer and facility. Almost like the consumer, I would say, can't do too much there except for not buying it. But sometimes you can't be up to date with everything. So it's kind of playing catch up because now the composters, the commercial ones, they can process more of that material, but it's maybe just at airports and stuff like that, so it's not everywhere like that.

So if we had 80% of compostable wrappers with 20% of organics, it wouldn't work because we don't have enough batteries. Yeah, try to have all your wrappers, composable wrappers, and put a little bit of soil on there and leave it in the garden. Nothing is going to happen for a long time. It needs to be digged in the soil and then the process of the soil can compost it. That's why we have to keep eating our vegetables and fruits on top of chocolate.

Would be great to eat more chocolate and a little bit of vegetables. But eventually we still need the fruits and the vegetables. It's a good reminder to still have a balance behind everything. Totally. Yeah.

So regarding sustainability, before we jump to my favorite part, which is actually talking about the benefits of eating cacao, I had another question which was about you mentioned organic beans. So I wonder how that play a role in the sustainability aspect or dose it even. I don't know. Cacao and chocolate in general is one of these industries that if it's non organic, it's super terrible because it not just destroys ecosystems, but also it's the life of the farmers and monoculture. Right?

It says, like, okay, pretty much that cacao is coming from a place where they use monoculture to grow the cacao and pesticides herbicides. Actually, I wouldn't be too worried in general with cacao, because it's a tree, it's quite resilient if you have other trees around there. So that is one thing about the organic and even fair trade. It ensures that it's smaller scale farmers and the cacao is grown in. Actually the right name is agroforestry.

And I always thought that's just it could also be monoculture. But agroforestry is pretty much permaculture in like a forest scale. You said a bunch of words. I don't know. Okay, agroforestry and agroforestry.

So sustainable growing of cacao is usually also called agroforestry in a sustainable way. Okay, what does it mean even for cacao? It means that you have a lot of other trees around and you don't just plant one tree by itself and then again, their whole tree, which is here, even in BC, they do that with forests where then it's sustainable wood. But it's one tree planted many, many times. Oh, I see, the same one.

Right. It's the opposite of monoculture. So here in BC, that's a problem with forest fires, even actually naturally in trees. There are some trees that are fire resistant, but now if you plant monoculture, you don't have that and the fire goes big right away. So there's lots of issues with monoculture in nature.

Just try it in your garden. Right? Try planting one plant. Okay. Then this worm comes and destroys everything.

So it's very difficult and it's not resilient monoculture. And because then that plant is not resilient because it doesn't have all these other plants around it for nitrogen, for all the support for the bees, for the birds, then that's why they use herbicides and pesticides. Because once one thing comes and destroys one plant, be sure one wolf, one whatever comes, and all of them are there and destroy that whole crop. And obviously then the farmer is getting screwed. So to just sum up and make sure I understand correctly, if I have a garden and I decide to just plant tomatoes and I have another garden, and here I mix tomatoes with strawberries, with an apple tree and stuff, then I have more likely chances to have insects in my tomato garden.

Less likely if it's just solely tomato. Yeah. And then I'm going to use pesticides. Exactly. So I would say instead of saying more insects, because from the opposite of monoculture, as permaculture, the insects actually good.

There's certain insects that are really good and actually help. Right. The pollination and all of that. But generally, you have more resiliency because you have other plants. So really, permaculture is what to look into.

If you have, like, a small scale garden, it's very difficult to set up or takes a lot of work because you need to learn about the plants. So one plant is just going to be for nitrogen in the soil, and it's going to help grow, so you don't need to feed the soil so much. Then you have one plant, the fruit tree in the center, which is going to attract certain birds, but going to keep away from all your other lovely herbs and vegetables you grow underneath. So you kind of distract with one of the plants, and then you have a flower there that doesn't give you any vegetables, but it attracts bees. That's going to help pollinate your vegetables.

So you create a mini ecosystem. That's the goal of it. And you're going to notice that a lot of insects and other bees and birds come back to that area because you built such a beautiful garden, and it's nothing. Don't push them away. It's like, actually, it's a healthy sign and they're going to support your garden.

And less wheats coming there. There's less like invasives, no matter if it's plants or birds or anything, because all these plants are built in a system that they help each other grow. So that in now looking in cacao farming, and a large scale cacao is generally a plant where the plants around it actually contribute to the flavor of the cacao. Wow, just like a wine. Just like a wine, exactly.

We talk about terroir, right? In wine, you have that the same and everything. Just not to confuse the listener is, I'm talking about craft chocolate, which is artesian, small scale chocolate, which has a pride in where the bean comes from. 89% is just regular commercial chocolate, where you don't even know where the bean is from. So that's very different.

And they don't want all these flavors from the other plants. They want one nestle is going to taste like this. My hershey is always going to taste like this, right? So they don't want these unique flavors around. But generally, if you go into the higher quality craft chocolate, that is what makes up your flavors and shows how your cacao is different and your chocolate is different from others.

So my creole beans, which is from Ecuador, Peru, it's only 5% of the world. Beans are creole beans. The others are different breeds in Africa, monoculture and all of that. So they have a little bit of banana notes in the afternoon because there's banana trees around there. They have some citrus.

If they grow citrus, it's just like when you go into BC to the okanagan. I don't know if you were here when you lived here, but it's all the white wines there. And I would say they specialize in white wines because it doesn't get too hot, but they have peachy notes, they have some cherries. You taste what grows around there, and that's usually with plants like that, but in cacao, because it absorbs these flavors and then it gets fermented where the fruit flesh gets soaked into the bean that we later on roast and process. You actually have all of these flavors in your bean.

I would say, in my opinion, is that you can't have a quality craft chocolate without doing it organic and fair trade because you're not going to ever achieve the same flavor notes. It's incredible. It's a wild cacao, almost, right? With all the trees around. It needs the shading from the banana and the coconut tree.

It needs all these other plants around it to grow, but also to have amazing flavors. Yeah, you convinced me with all the visualization that, like the description of the garden and just the peaches and the cherries flavors, I see it. I can taste it almost, so it makes sense. I'm sorry. You convinced me.

Hi there, my lovely listeners. We've been deep diving into the world of the good chocolateier, severing every bit of information about ethically sourced and organic ingredients that make this chocolate truly exceptional. Now, here's the exciting part. I reached out to Mara, the powerhouse behind the good chocolateier, and guess what? She's treating all of you to something special.

Just head over to our website, thegoodchocolates here.com, and use the code motion ten. That's motion 10 for a delightful 10% off your order. You're welcome. But it gets even better. By treating yourself to these delicious chocolate, you're not just rewarding your body with high quality ingredients.

No. You're also supporting a canadian female owned business with a heartwarming social mission. How cool is that? Oh, and speaking of favorites, personally, I can't get enough of the honey and dates and the matcha creamsicle bars. They're making my days way easier.

So let's keep the good vibes rolling. Head over to thegoodchocolateer.com, use the code motion ten and let the chocolate adventure continue. Find all the sweet details in our show notes. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Of good in motion.

If you loved this as much as I did, go ahead and rate and subscribe so you never miss an episode. This is Juliette signing up. See you next time.