Askinosie Chocolate
Askinosie Chocolate is the brainchild of Shawn Askinosie, a lawyer-turned-chocolatier who with his daughter Lawren, established one of the United States’ first small-batch, craft chocolate companies in Springfield, Missouri. Shawn travels the world to meet with cocoa farmers and establish the most important part of the chocolate-making process, the farmer-maker relationship. Social responsibility is weaved into the fabric of Askinosie Chocolate. By removing from the equation brokers and other middlemen common in the commodity chocolate industry, Askinosie is able to share their profits directly with the farmers they work with in Ecuador, Tanzania, the Philippines and Amazonia, paying them a living wage for their labor and expertise.
