I couldn’t resist sharing this email that we received. Maybe they’ll use Endangered Species Chocolate as a wedding favor…

HI! Everytime I go grocery shopping I buy a chocolate bar… it makes me feel good that I’m donating a little bit each week to help animals! Sometimes I eat the chocolate before I leave the parking lot, and sometimes I pass it on to a friend. I’m now asking that you do the same with my cause. My fiance and I are in a GREEN/Organic wedding&honeymoon contest. We are finalists, and now need votes. Please pass this information on to as many email addresses as possible to help us win. Voting is done online… vote once per email address until Feb.8th. Thank you so much. 

Go to www.greenweddinggiveaway.com 

Vote for Kelly&Benny 

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!! 

I used to love dark chocolate as a kid, though I was eating mostly Hershey’s. I’ve always liked dark chocolate for as long as I can remember because it always had a more full taste and wasn’t all sugar. As I got older I would eye out the better chocolate like Lindt and get the 70% or 85% cocoa bars. Even at that point of my own chocolate journey I didn’t eat much, maybe a bar a month. Then one day while shopping at my local neighborhood Target I saw a bar I hadn’t seen at the other evil big box stores and that chocolate was Endangered Species Chocolate. I saw on the wrapper that they gave away 10% of net profit to charity and that’s really what helped me make the decision to buy my first bar from them.

Ever since then 95% of my chocolate intake has been Endangered Species Chocolate.  My favorite bar is the 88% cocoa (Panther) the richest and most flavorful one that they have. I do enjoy there 72% bar with and without the additions. The new organic dark chocolate bars are quite good but I have not had the one with pecans in it yet. It seems like I have always gone for the darkest deepest chocolate since I found out I had a brain.

Whenever I cook or eat I must have all the items tend to be from the same original origin (like where they where in the beginning of the world). So since cocoa originally comes from South America (so do tomatoes and potatoes) I might as well enjoy it with a beverage from South America because sometimes the bitter dark chocolate makes me a little thirsty. That is when I found the most awesome combo – Yerba Mate tea with dark chocolate. Yerba Mate is an amazing plant that makes you feel awesome read more here…….. be sure to check out all the health benefits.

I love chocolate (in moderation of course I learned my lesson last week) and it has lead me into this wonderful internship that has opened doors in my mind for my career focus. Who knows?, When I am out of college in four or five years I’ll come back and the door to ESC will be open for me again (hopefully).

Today I went back into Production and saw chocolate bars being made. I didn’t know until this internship that the bars were made here because of the size of the facility. But oh yes they are made here in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The cocoa comes from Ivory Coast and Peru and in storage they probably have over a hundred thousand pounds of cocoa. They melt it all down in one machine then it takes it to another machine that cools it then one machine that molds it and refrigerates it then it wrapped by this really cool machine then hand-placed into boxes.

Today they were making the Panther Bar, the 88% cocoa bar – Extreme Dark Chocolate. This is my favorite bar personally because it is so rich and intense. Today’s goal was 32,000 bars and that goal is easily reached with all the diligent workers, and that is only using one machine. They have two machines that can produce at least 30,000 bars each and when its time to make chocolate for Christmas or Valentine’s they are running full force all the time.

It is interesting - all the work, thought, and diligence that goes into making such perfect chocolate bars is amazing.

If you would like a tour of Endangered Species Chocolate factory contact them today and they will be more than happy to assist you in all you chocolaty needs!

My 4 day diet of dark chocolate continues…..

So…..my morning oatmeal, which is the first thing I think about when I wake up, was different this morning - I put a few squares of dark chocolate with peanut butter and a banana in it. So good! I usually have cinnamon raisin oatmeal but today I decided to try something different.  I love oatmeal - it is so versatile. I always add a bunch of stuff to my oatmeal to get the day started off right. This morning besides the dark chocolate, banana, and peanut butter, I added soymilk, wheat germ, flaxseed, walnuts, soy protein powder, and turbinado sugar.

You can cook oatmeal in water, (soy)milk, or fruit juice, which is really good. I love oatmeal – it is so versatile.

Oatmeal is good for you. Oats are an excellent source of fiber, and protein. Oat’s protein is a “complete” protein meaning it has all the amino acids in the protein chain. I love oatmeal – it is so versatile. 

Well this is Tyler, the ‘vegan-tern’. My Internship has so far consisted of deleting some of over 60,000 spam comments made on this blog, and clipping advertisements in the many magazines that Endangered Species Chocolate advertises in. I must say that I’m really liking this place, the people are really nice especially Renee who usually writes for the blog. I have enjoyed the perks of this internship with eating a good amount of chocolate already.

Tyler is the new Endangered Species Chocolate intern. He’s from a local Indianapolis high school and will spend two weeks, 5 hours a day, helping, learning, and perhaps munching on the occasional dark chocolate bar. On his first day I learned that he’s a vegan, so dark chocolate is the only way to go. He’s very interested in natural foods, and would like to persue a career in food business eventually. I’ll let him tell you more about his interests and such during his time here. He’ll be blogging daily (or as often as possible when he’s not busy checking media clips, monitoring blog comments, assisting sales with promotional kits – that’s right, we’re putting him to work!). Come back to check out what Tyler has to say about working in a chocolate factory – and leave him a comment while you’re here!