Conservation

At Coco Délice Fine Chocolates, we are committed to environmentally responsible practices and believe that the management of these practices is a key to sustainable development. We are lucky that our master chocolatier and founder’s first career was in environmental sciences and conservation and we’re sure you’ll see and taste his influences in our products and presentation.

Running a successful green business means that we are committed to making constant improvements in all areas of our operation. Five areas of particular attention are: product ingredients and production, packaging, energy efficiency, recycling, and conservation. Some of our initiatives include the following:

Product Ingredients & Production

• Use of locally produced organic ingredients whenever possible makes our ingredients fresher, tastier, and more nutritious — and reduces transportation/fuel consumption.

Packaging

Solutions that communicate elegance and luxury using recyclable materials, reducing waste, and eliminating over seas transportation.

• Our chocolate boxes are produced in California vs. overseas to reduce energy consumption.

• The Thai paper used to accent the interior of our gift boxes is produced from kozo fiber (mulberry), which is grown as an annual farm crop in Asia.

• We use no excess packaging (e.g. false bottoms, plastic trays) in our chocolate boxes.

• We purchase only vegetable starch based packing peanuts that are 100% biodegradable

Energy Efficiency

• Approximately 97% of all lighting in our production facility is from compact florescent lighting.

• Most of the equipment used in production is Energy Star certified.

Recycling

Re-use of all paper packaging materials received from our vendors, including boxes, packing paper and peanuts.

• All paper towel products are made from 100% recycled content.

• We use environmentally friendly cleaning products to the extent possible.

Conservation

Partnership with a scientific and academic organization committed to preserving the earth’s biodiversity. Our current partnership is with Cetos Research Organization.

They conduct research on marine wildlife and their habitat. Working directly with regulators and ecosystem managers, they share their findings in order to enhance and augment conservation practices and management of living marine resources.

The Whale Collection™

Coco Delice is working with Cetos Research Organization to create an a custom box of chocolates that will contain five different images of federally–protected whale species. Information on these species will be included in each box.

The Whale Collection™ is designed to raise awareness of environmental issues, educate people about the ocean’s whales and create an important contribution to promoting conservation.

The sale of these one-of-a-kind chocolates will be available in summer 2010 at select retail shops, as well as science centers, zoos, aquariums, museums and other conservation-minded institutions.