Natural Soap Company Dr. Bronner’s to Launch Vegan Chocolate Bars​

Dr. Bronner’s, a top-selling natural soap brand best known for its all-in-one soaps, is releasing Dr. Bronner’s Magic All-One Chocolate to grocery store retailers on Aug. 1 and will sell its product online in the fall.

The organic dairy-free chocolate will come in six different flavors: roasted whole hazelnuts, crunchy hazelnut butter, salted whole almonds, salted almond butter, salted dark chocolate and smooth coconut praline. The chocolate bars are made from cocoa beans grown with regenerative organic practices, and are made with lower-glycemic coconut sugar.

The initiative began when the company learned that the Ghanian farmers who supply its Regenerative Organic Certified Serendipalm also grow cocoa and decided to expand the partnership. The company works with its farming partners by implementing dynamic agroforestry, a farming method used by Indigenous peoples of Latin America, in tandem with agriculture by the Swiss Ernst Götsch. Dynamic agroforestry creates “forest-like systems with high biomass production,” according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Dr. Bronner’s new venture also intends to confront the historically unethical chocolate industry. It aims to improve not only the practices involved in making chocolate, but it wants to do so in an environmentally friendly way.

In 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2020, chocolate companies including Hershey, Mars and Nestlé, failed to meet deadlines to eradicate child labor from their cocoa supply chains. According to The Washington Post, “the odds are substantial that a chocolate bar bought in the United States is the product of child labor.” One of the reasons chocolate companies have failed to rid child labor from their cocoa supply is because many don’t know exactly where all of their cocoa comes from, much less if it was grown and harvested by a child.

Dr. Bronner’s is creating a new, ethically sourced product in the hope that it “uplifts both body and soul, as well as mitigates climate change and supports small-scale farmers globally,” the company said.

In addition to being certified USDA organic and vegan, the chocolate is a certified fair trade product.

Audrey Nakagawa is the content creator intern at EcoWatch. She is a senior at James Madison University studying Media, Art, and Design, with a concentration in journalism. She’s a reporter for The Breeze in the culture section and writes features on Harrisonburg artists, album reviews, and topics related to mental health and the environment. She was also a contributor for Virginia Reports where she reported on the impact that COVID-19 had on college students.