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The editorial staff of 12/13 met Christophe Bertrand, a committed chocolate maker who uses organic and fair trade cocoa from Cameroon, but for all other raw materials, he favors producers located near his home, in the Yvelines.
Christophe Bertrand is a committed chocolatier. In his workshop, everything is local, except for the cocoa beans which come from Cameroon. For the manufacture of chocolates, all the ingredients are purchased in Île-de-France. He fetches his products himself from the suppliers. It was in a beekeeper’s outfit that the 12/13 team found him at one of his neighbours.
The local taste is a passion that the chocolate maker shares with Julien Perrin, the beekeeper. He makes her taste his last harvests. “You have to buy locally, you have to buy at the bottom of your home. Why go looking for honey on the other side of the world when your neighbor does?“, indicates the chocolatier. For cocoa beans, it is impossible to go local. But here again, Christophe Bertrand chooses his partners with great care. He created a cooperative in Cameroon to work directly with 75 cocoa producers.