The holidays are a time for indulging in sweets and treats and my favourite, chocolate. Whether it is being used in baking your holiday favourites, giving as a gift to someone important to you or just treating yourself, you shouldn’t settle for just any chocolate.
Sure you can find chocolate everywhere, in bars and chips and chunks, but really good chocolate, ethically produced and sourced from fair trade suppliers, can be harder to locate. Once you’ve had really good chocolate you won’t want to settle for the mainstream stuff, especially if it’s a gift. I think Julie, from Dinner with Julie, would agree. She talks about her experience sampling and learning about the source of chocolate available in her local stores. She even shares a sweet Chocolate Shooters recipe.
Seeking out good chocolate can be tough if you don’t know where to look but the free Choco-locate app makes it easier. Developed by Toronto based filmmaker Lalita Krishna while working on the ‘Semisweet’ chocolate documentary, the Choco-locate app enables you to find artesian, fair trade, vegan, organic and even raw chocolate right from your smart phone. It empowers us as chocolate lovers to source and support fair trade chocolate shops across Canada and beyond.
You can find a chocolate a shop based on your current location or by city name, should you need to find a gift for a distant friend. You’ll find cities domestically as well as a few Internationally and the list continues to grow.
Some great features for finding a chocolate shop near you:
- List or Map View. If you are more of a visual person you can toggle to a scalable map view of the local chocolate stores near you. Click a map marker to find the name of the shop. Click the name to go the shops detail page in the app.
- Connect to a Shop. From each chocolate shop screen, you can call the shop with a click; find out what the carry, or put something on hold. You can obtain directions to the shop from your location, right from the app too.
- Social Sharing. When you discover a new chocolate shop or want to tell a friend about your favourite place to pick-up a chocolate gift for you (hint hint), you can send an email or share it on twitter and Facebook.
- Varied Search Options. Along with searching by your current location or city, you can also seek out chocolate shops based on the type of chocolate you are interested in (artesian, fair trade, vegan, organic, and raw).
- Favourites. Set-up your username and you can create a favourites list, add tips, and rate chocolate treats you have tried or hope to try.
Looking for a chocolate tasting or other related events? You can find these with the free Choco-locate app too. The app even highlights sales and specials going on by some of the featured chocolate shops.
The Choco-locate app is a must have app if you are a chocolate lover like myself or know someone who is. Family Fun Calgary agrees, as they use the app to discover some local chocolate shops worth a visit. Plus it’s free so there’s nothing holding you back from giving it a try. If you download it now during the holidays you can help the World Vision Canada fund to support programs that put an end to child labour.
The holidays may be about indulging but they are also about giving from the heart. Downloading the free Choco-locate app this holiday season enables you to do both, indulge in the best chocolate your city has to offer, as well as support stores that believe in ethical work practices for those in the chocolate business.
Download the app today.
This holiday season, Choco-locate is teaming up with World Vision Canada for a worthy charitable drive. For every person who downloads the free Choco-locate app on their iPad or iPhone or uploads the mobile website choco-locate.com on their smart phones, we will donate one free-trade chocolate bar to sweeten a basket that will be auctioned off on December 20th. The proceeds will go to a World Vision Canada fund that supports program to end child labour.
Sponsored by Choco-locate.