100% ORGANIC* & FAIR TRADE
Our Entire Chocolate Production Business is Fair Trade verified. Zotter is a member of WFTO – the World Fair Trade Organization, which is the umbrella organization for global fair trade. The WFTO monitors business compliance with the 10 principles of fair trade like, among others, transparency, respect for the environment, the payment of fair prices and no use of child labor. We buy our cacao directly from the growers and are happy to pay well above the global market rates for a high-quality product. A big factor in producing that exceptional quality is personal contact and collaboration. Julia Zotter has visited our Maya cacao farmers in Belize and Guatemala, as well as in Tanzania, Togo, Ghana, and São Tomé recently. Afterwards she has been in Peru, where a lot of our cacao suppliers live.
We mainly buy our cacao in Latin America, the cradle of cacao. We get our fine flavor cacao from various different countries like Peru, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Panama, Ecuador, Guatemala, Brazil, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Madagascar, Togo, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda. Each chocolate contains a piece of history – from Belize’s Maya cacao to cacao from Panama and Peru, cultivated by indigenous tribes in the middle of the rain forest, who use it to safeguard their traditional way of life, to cacao from Nicaragua, transported by sailboat: for the first time in 20 years, a sail cargo ship landed at Hamburg port, carrying our cacao. It was transported entirely emission-free and completely sustainably by the Brigantes and Timbercoast crews.
Fair traded organic cacao beans from small farms, grown in a mixed crop agriculture, produce a better flavor but also ensure the preservation of local cultures – of humans and plants.
ONE OF THE MOST SUSTAINABLE COMPANIES IN AUSTRIA
We only use organic and fair traded raw materials because those are simply better for us humans and our environment. We also run our business with 100% clean energy, we produce our own power with a photovoltaic generator and we have a fleet of electric vehicles. Our organic farm covers 80 hectares, from which we get many ingredients for the free, organic lunch for our 200 employees. We have created a number of development aid projects like »Cocoa not Cocaine« in South America, planted trees in rainforests and we are the proud recipients of the European Business Award for Sustainability in Austria. Our chocolate factory counts among the most sustainable businesses in Austria and we have also gained an EMAS certificate: external environmental experts assessed our production life cycle and our environmental goals and found them exemplary.
Your next trip to Austria: ZOTTER’S EXPERIENCE WORLD • THE CHOCOLATE THEATRE & THE EDIBLE ZOO
The Chocolate Theatre offers an exciting tasting tour. Visitors can experience first-hand how chocolate is made! At our transparent factory, you can see every step of the production process. Everything, from bean to bar, is produced in-house. With many tasting stations like the bonbon roller coaster, a chocolate-serving robot, our dental clinic with sugar-free chocolates, a praline fountain, the smallest drinking chocolate-serving cable car in the world. And of course the highlight our Hand-scooped Chocolate amuse-bouches, going round and round at our Running Chocolate station.
At our organic adventure farm »Edible Zoo«, our focus is on showing how food is made, where the ingredients come from and what an ecologically sound farm should look like. The answers to these questions can be found at our Edible Zoo, where we keep old indigenous breeds and grow regional fruit and vegetable varieties. At our Öko-Essbar restaurant, we serve organic food and drinks, made with ingredients from our own gardens and pastures.
FAMILY BUSINESS
The factory, founded long ago in one of the stables at Josef Zotter’s parents’ farm, has become a competency center for chocolate. The whole family is working there with passion, Josef, Ulrike and their children Julia and Michael, apart from Valerie, because she is still in school.
THE U.S. IMPORTER AND DISTRIBUTOR
Barbara and Andreas Dolleschal immigrated the United States in January 2013 with a Greencard to pursue their dream to live and work here. They own Web-Development and Digital Marketing business supplying services for Zotter since early 2000’s. One can imagine working together over long time created bonds of friendship as well as deep love for chocolate itself – it wasn’t surprising they really missed Zotter Chocolate after short while when started thinking about starting 2nd company that would import & distribute Zotter Chocolates
We wrap the chocolate carefully in insulated bubble foil. We also add an ice pack to the package. Your package is covered by our No-Melt Guarantee when you check out with “signature required”. Learn more
