Donate to Founder Tom Neuhaus Recognition Fund
TIMELINE OF PH&F—10 MAJOR EVENTS 2003: Teaching Food and Culture. Starting in 2003, I taught a class in the Food Science and Nutrition Department at California Polytechnic University. The goal was to help young nutrition students learn about culinary cultures.
2003 to 2012: Visiting Cocoa Farmers in West Africa : we visited 15 villages every year in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon. We bought $6,000 of tools and distributed them. I took many photos and spiced up my lectures with the photos and the experiences.
2003: Traveling to Peru: in 2003, Pedro de Mesones, the descendant of Spanish conquistadores, asked me to visit his village in order to develop a chocolate business using local beans and teaching farmers to make their own chocolate. Nothing came of that, but it got me to thinking in terms of the value chain.
2006: Founding of PH&F: PH&F formally recognized as a non-profit by the IRS. This allowed us to raise money through donations.
2011: Transition to business: Two village chiefs, Guinea Tape Francois of Pezoan and Justin Dédé of Depa suggested we build a rice hulling center to spare women the hours required to decorticate rice by mortar and pestle. We added a small room for making chocolate.
2011: The first big donation: $10,000 was needed to build a rice hulling facility in Depa. I showed the movie, “Dark Side of Chocolate” at my home. Celia Zaentz, a local film producer attending the showing, gave me the money to begin the first big project.
2012 - 2023: Depa and SOCOPLAN: David Zigro established a cooperative and thanks to our donations, he purchased the tools to make chocolate, cocoa butter, and cocoa powder. SOCOPLAN became known its quality chocolate and cocoa butter thanks to the contributions of JP Bolou and Jerôme Kouakou. David showed off his bars at the Salon de Paris in 2022 and subsequently in Morocco.
2019: Pezoan and SCAP: in 2019 Evariste Plegnon put me in touch with Adama Yamba (AKA Servando). We built a two-room facility to house a rice hulling machine and in the second room for tempering and molding chocolate. Servando quickly became an expert at making fudge-filled bars; he is a master at tempering and has since won awards for the quality of his products.
2023: N’Douci and ONG-ASCAF: Roger Gnepoh whom I met in 2005 when he was managing a school for orphans agreed in 2022 to combine our two non-profits with five cooperatives in the N’Douci area. Our plan was to manufacture chocolate from the beans of the five local cooperatives and to develop classes in good cocoa-growing practices that use agroforestry techniques.
2023: Projet Espoir et Equité: I opened a small retail store in 2023 in Cordes-sur-Ciel, France in order to promote the brand, Chocolat des Villages, for sale throughout the EU.
The Annual Fund
Mission: The Annual Fund directly supports equipment purchase and repair, marketing, training, product development, and operations in the three cocoa farming and chocolate production villages.
A recurring giving program can make your gift easy, convenient, and affordable. Your support provides a predictable stream of revenue in support of the PH&F mission and work while allowing you to pace your philanthropy throughout the year. You can opt for your donation to process monthly.
$5000, $1000, $500, or $____, Your option for one time, monthly or annually
