12 October Columbus Day & ChocoDay
Chocoholics Worldwide Celebrate Fair Trade Cocoa and Chocolate
When Christopher Columbus discovered America on 12 October 1492, he also implicitly made available to Europe what would become the world's favourite food: chocolate
Since 2005, October 12th is something more than just Columbus Day: in Italy, it is now also becoming widely known as Chocoday! As you may guess, the two celebrations are not unrelated, because it was thanks to Christopher Columbus' accidental discovery of the American continent that Europe came to know cocoa, and chocolate as a result.
Some History: Cocoa Meets Europe
Among the many strange and wondrous things that Columbus brought back to the Spanish king and queen (Ferdinand II and Isabella of Aragon) from his first American voyages, were a few dark brown beans that looked much like almonds. Columbus failed to understand their value and was nonplussed as to why the Aztec American natives would use them as currency.
In fact it wasn't until some decades later, when Cortez had the brilliant idea of mixing the bitter cocoa beverage with sugar, that the magic of this seed became apparent, and the chocolate fashion took hold in Spain first, and throughout Europe later.
ChocoDay Manifesto
Promoted by Eurochocolate Perugia, Italy's leading festival for the sweet-toothed that takes place each October in the charming county town of Umbria, Chocoday aims to circulate its manifesto worldwide.
On one side, Chocoday aims to spread the knowledge of the delectable health and dietary properties of 'real chocolate' – i.e. chocolate obtained using butter and cocoa mass exclusively – as opposed to chocolate whose ingredients include added fats and vegetable oils.
On the other hand, the event advocates sustainable cocoa production including ethic, social, environmental and economic issues such as production policies for sustainability, efforts to improve the functioning of the cocoa supply chain, preservation of the environment in cocoa production, diversification, etc. as maintained by ICCO (International Cocoa Organization), a global organization based in London and composed of both cocoa producing and cocoa consuming countries.
Institutional Sponsors
Chocoday is backed by the Italian Ministries of Agriculture and of Economic Development and supported by a number of trade organizations as well as by Fairtrade TransFair Italia, Italy's branch of FLO (Fair Trade Labelling Organisations).
Chocolate Fans Worldwide, Join the Chocoday Celebrations!
Throughout Italy and beyond, institutions and business sharing this vision are encouraged to spread the word and organize their own events to celebrate Chocoday, and they are welcome to display and promote the Chocoday logo (pictured below). Participating events range from tastings to lectures and from exhibitions to chocolate spa and beauty treatments. Meanwhile, the organizers have also devised a special multimedia kit of teaching aids on the subject, that schools may request for their classes.
