Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM chocolate
Bixby & Co. uses Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM chocolate. A symbol of fair trade and ensures no use of unfair labor practices occur in the growing of the cocoa used in our chocolate. They also work to ensure that the natural environment in which cacao beans are grown is protected and maintained.
The Rainforest Alliance is an “international non-profit organization working… to make responsible business the new normal”. They ensure goods, like chocolate, are fairly traded and that unfair labor practices do not occur in the growing and cultivation of goods. Bixby & Co. takes this certification very seriously as unfortunately, the cacao trade, like that of coffee, is prone to unethical practices. Owners, Kate and Donna McAleer, are committed to ethical trade and have visited cacao plantations from which Bixby & Co.’s beans are sourced.
Learn more about Rainforest Alliance. www.rainforest-alliance.org
Certified Organic
Bixby & Co. offers several USDA certified organic products - the highest standard of certification that ensures products are free of pesticides, herbicides, and GMOs. The food is produced following the guidelines and standards of organic farming.
Bixby & Co. is certified USDA Organic through MOFGA, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. According to MOFGA, organic farming methods avoid many of the health and environmental problems that can result from large-scale crop farming and from using synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. As such, organic is the gold standard for personal health and the health of our environment. Bixby & Co. works to ensure only quality ingredients are used in addition to working with farmers and manufactures’ whose products are grown/made without pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, or genetically modified organisms.
Learn more facts about organic. organic.org/faqs/
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Puffins
Bixby & Co. has teamed up with the National Audubon Society to help Puffins and other Maine seabirds thrive on land and sea. Puffins are amazing and everything about them usually comes as a surprise. They typically mate for life and nest on some of Maine’s most remote islands where they lay a single egg a year, deep underground, which even in the best circumstances limit their population growth. Changes in the environment further challenges these birds as the warming water in this region has made finding food for chicks more difficult. Puffin parents commit three months of every year to raise their single chick before returning to the ocean where they float at sea most of the year. By mid-August, chicks head to sea alone where they catch their own food and remain for the first two or three years of their life. When they are about five years old, they return to the Gulf of Maine around mid-April, to nest for the first time on the same islands where their parents nest. Proceeds of the sale of Puffin products help support Audubon’s Project Puffin, a world famous seabird conservation program located in mid-coast Maine.
Always Non-GMO
All Bixby & Co. chocolate confections are Non-GMO. We conduct in-house GMO checks and have third party verification through The Non-GMO Project. GMO’s (genetically modified organism) is a term used to identify living organisms whose genetics have been altered through genetic engineering. What makes Non-GMO and organic different is non-GMO ingredients have not had their genes altered however, at some point these ingredients could have consumed or absorbed something containing GMOs. By choosing Non-GMO food you are saying no to the practice of artificially altering the natural state of plants and animals.
Learn more about the Non-GMO Project. nongmoproject.org
As always, it is important we do our part not just today, but everyday, to protect the planet. To learn more visit earthday.org
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