With the goal of preserving the environment, chocolate shop and factory River-Sea Chocolates creates craft bean-to-bars using cacao from small-scale farmers. They already have a location in Chantially, and opened a new location last month in Reston.
The store sources their cacao beans from different farmers all around the world. Their first batch came from Brazil because one of the founders, Mariano D’Aguiar, has family there.
“Because we literally have family and friends in Brazil, we figured it would be a good way to build a bridge between our community here in Northern Virginia and those people in the tropics,” said Dave Przybysz, outreach director and chocolate maker. “Mariano gets to go and visit his family sometimes and in the process, he meets with new farmers and scouts out new sources of cacao.”
River-Sea Chocolates makes all of its chocolate in an environmentally-friendly manner. One way they do this is by shipping their cacao from Brazil to Virginia using sail boats instead of mass shipping containers.
“Wind-powered cacao would be carbon neutral,” Przybysz said. “Most of the world’s shipping is done with these big container ships, and they’re fueled by crude oil, which causes a lot of pollution.”
Another way the shop makes its chocolate eco-friendly is by using less pesticides that are harmful to the environment to grow their cacao beans, and instead, more organic materials.
“[We’re] able to [grow cacao] organically using much more natural materials, like fertilizers that don’t harm the environment, and compost,” Przybysz said. “Your yields aren’t necessarily going to be as big in a given season, but it will keep the land healthy and the people healthy, and that allows cacao to continue to be grown for generations to come.”
Most chocolate is grown with these pesticides, which harm the environment through soil contamination and runoff into nearby water sources.
“A lot of cacao in the world is grown in West African countries, and its plantation style farming where the land is clear cut and a lot of chemical pesticides and fertilizers are used to boost the production,” Przybysz said. “But this is tough on the land and on the water and it’s tough on the people.”
River-Sea Chocolates also makes sure that its chocolates are made without harmful chemicals, such as lead and cadmium. Since cacao trees can live for up to a hundred years, and the cacao pods take five and a half months to mature on the trees, they are good at extracting the nutrients from the soil. But in the process, heavy metals from the environment can also be concentrated into the cacao.
“We work with farmers who try to ensure that they are growing their cacao on land where there isn’t a lot of [lead and cadmium] as part of the makeup of the soil,” Przybysz said.
Many popular chocolate brands have high amounts of these harmful metals, which can increase cancer risk and kidney failure. For example, Lindt has cadmium levels 116% above Consumer Reports recommended levels. The popular Hershey’s chocolate brand has lead levels that are 265% above Consumer Reports recommended levels.
“Those [other] chocolate bars that have got such a small percentage of cacao, they’re also going to have a lot of other chemical additives to stretch the ingredients since the cacao is the most expensive part of making the chocolate,” Przybysz said.
Contrary to the popular belief that dark chocolate is more “healthy” than other chocolates, these harmful metals are found more often in dark chocolates. The reason lies in the amount of cacao in the chocolate—the more cacao, the more toxic minerals.
In keeping their products safe, River Sea Chocolates also makes sure their chocolate is high quality. Dark chocolate is usually more than 50% cacao, and River-Sea Chocolate’s main chocolate bars have 72% cacao. But milk chocolate can constitute anything less than 50%. As long cacao makeup is more than 10%, it’s still considered chocolate.
“We have a high percentage of cacao in our chocolate bars. But a popular brand of chocolate, I’m not going to name any specific companies, might have only 11% cacao in their milk chocolate bar,” Przybysz said. “It makes it good for s’mores, but it has a lot of sugar in it, which is less healthy.”
River-Sea Chocolates also produces their cacao using ethical labor practices.
“We try to make sure that our farmers are growing their cacao in harmony with their environment,” Przybysz said. “We’re also ensuring that there’s no slave labor or child labor involved in the production of the cacao, which is unfortunately very common in the industry.”
The chocolate is sourced directly from cacao farmers, which is unlike standard practice. Most cacao is sold to bean brokers, which are essentially middlemen. Big chocolate manufacturers buy from the bean broker instead of knowing where the beans actually come from.
“By buying directly from the farmers, River-Sea Chocolates is able to share more of the profits directly with the farmers,” Przybysz said. “That also allows us to ensure that the cacao is being made in an ethical and sustainable way, which is really important to us.”
From keeping harmful metal out of their chocolates to ethical labor practices and even environmentally friendly growing methods, River-Sea Chocolates is a unique experience for all. Since the shop operates as a factory, it offers customers a view of how everything is made.
“People can come in and buy bars of chocolate and our truffles, which are like bonbons, and they can get a wide view of the chocolate making process,” Przybysz said. “Everything from roasting to grinding, molding the bars and wrapping them takes place right here in Fairfax County.”
