Divine Chocolate has been awarded Best Vegan Chocolate 2008 by PETA, the world’s largest animal rights organisation.  Divine’s delicious Mint 70% Dark Chocolate received a PETA ‘Proggy’ (Progressive) Award which is granted to companies that are leaders in their fields with animal-friendly products, actions and innovations.

All Divine products (all of which are suitable for vegetarians) – now a range of over 25 including eight different bars, chocolate drinks, seasonal products and gifts – carry the Fairtrade Mark.  Divine Chocolate’s mission is to improve the lives of smallholder farmers in West Africa by establishing their own dynamic brand proposition in the UK chocolate market. To this end Divine buys all its cocoa at the Fairtrade price, and the farmers’ cooperative in Ghana that supplies the cocoa also owns a 45% stake in the company.  So the 45,000 members receive a share in Divine profits too.

Divine’s Mint 70% Dark Chocolate was also a finalist in the prestigious Branded Excellence Awards 2008 announced by The Grocer magazine.

Divine Drinking Chocolate was also recently awarded Best Vegan Fairly Traded Product in the Vegan Society Awards 2007.  And last month the 1.5 million readers of Good Housekeeping magazine voted for Divine as their Favourite Fairtrade Product.

Divine is available in all the major supermarkets, Oxfam, ethicalsuperstore.com and independent food stores nationwide.

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Please contact Charlotte Borger or Rosanna Mayhew on 0207 378 6550, charlotte@divinechocolate.com for images and more information.

Editors notes:

• For more details about the Divine range of Fairtrade chocolate and the story of Divine and Kuapa Kokoo visit www.divinechocolate.com

• For sales and stockist enquiries contact alistair@divinechocolate.com or find more details on www.divinechocolate.com

• Divine Chocolate Ltd is co-owned by Kuapa Kokoo, a co-operative of 45000 cocoa farmers in Ghana who grow the Fairtrade beans for Divine and Dubble, and who share in the profits.

• 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 increase their ability to be self sufficient.

• The UK chocolate market alone is worth approximately £3.4 billion a year: if Fairtrade products can capture even a small proportion of that market, producers in developing countries gain real benefits.