🌿 5 Green Flags When Choosing Ceremonial-Grade Cacao 🌿

As we lead up to the festive season, and start buying presents for friends, family, and colleagues it’s worth pausing for a moment to consider where your money goes.

Cacao, the bean that makes chocolate, carries a powerful history of slavery, corruption and abuse. Behind every product you buy there is a chain of stakeholders that are either benefiting, or being harmed, from your purchase.

In our modern capitalist society, it is our personal consumer choices that determine the wellbeing of all stakeholders, the environment, and a sustainble and healthy future.

As we know, not all cacao is created equal, but instead of listing what to avoid let’s celebrate what to look for.

So, before you stock up on cheap chocolate, here are five green flags to look for when choosing ceremonial-grade cacao, or any ethical chocolate product.

These are guidelines, so that you know what you’re buying ensures that everyone along the supply chain flourishes, and that your purchase truly supports the wellbeing of the planet, and the people behind the product.

1. It’s Grown in Harmony With Nature 🌱

Green flag: The cacao comes from biodiverse, regenerative, or shade-grown farms. This means the trees aren’t part of a monocrop plantation, but part of a living ecosystem that supports birds, pollinators, and healthy soils. Look for cacao grown in regions that prioritise reforestation and local ecology, like Ecuador’s Chocó Andino, a UNESCO biosphere reserve where traditional farming practices protect both forest and farmer.

2. You Know the Origin 🌍

Green flag: The brand proudly names where the cacao is grown and who grows it. Transparency isn’t just trendy, it’s respectful. When you can trace your cacao back to a specific region, community, or even a family of growers, you know it’s not passing through exploitative supply chains. Bonus: Knowing what bean you are consuming and where it comes from also means you’re tasting the unique flavour notes of the land itself.

3. It Supports the Farmers Fairly 🤝

Green flag: The farmers receive fair pay and long-term support. Beyond “fair trade” labels, true ethical cacao honours relationships. When farmers are paid properly and treated as partners, they can nurture the land, invest in their families, and pass on traditional knowledge all of which makes for richer, more soulful cacao.

4. It’s Pure and Minimally Processed 🍫

Green flag: Pure 100% ceremonial-grade cacao is all about integrity; stone-ground and definitely not powdered. It contains no refined sugar, no dairy, and definitely no additives or fillers. All extra ingredients are healthy, organic and plant-based, so what you get is the full-bodied essence of the cacao bean with all its natural theobromine, magnesium, and bliss chemistry intact. 

5. It Feels Good, Energetically and Emotionally 💗

Green flag: You can physically feel the difference. When cacao is grown in clean soil, harvested, and shared with reverence, it carries a purer vibration and energy. You’ll notice it in ceremony, in meditation, or even in your daily cup. It’s a grounded, heart-opening calm that brings you back into your centre, calms any anxiety and worry, and helps you feel more loved up and blissed out.

Choosing ceremonial-grade cacao with these green flags is definitely not about finding the “cheapest” brand. It’s about buying a product that aligns with your own values and ethics.

When you buy from Ritual Cacao you are not only buying a product, you are choosing to spend money with a business that ensures all our cacao is grown in harmony with the Earth, supports and honours the farmers that grow it, and everyone and everything thrives.