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Trick-or-treating with a social conscience

Cara Loverock
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, October 22, 2008

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - No other festivity is as notorious for being as sugar-filled as Halloween.

The piles of candy gathered by children during their trick-or-treating is often a nutritional nightmare for parents, leaving kids with heaps of lollipops, chocolate bars and other unhealthy treats.

NNSL Photo/Graphic

Dana Martin, front store manager of Sutherland's Drugs, shows off some of the Green and Blacks organic chocolate products. Fair trade and organic treats can be hard to come by in Yellowknife. - Cara Loverock/ NNSL photo

This haunting season Yellowknife parents have the option of filling the bags of little ghouls and goblins coming to the door with more socially-minded, healthier options that will still satisfy the sweet tooth.

Companies specializing in fair trade and organic chocolate are catering more to Halloween and creating treats that are suitable for the occasion as well as being socially responsible.

"Fair trade aims to give more of the profit to the actual farmer," explained Suzette Montreuil with Alternatives North.

"So they can support their families better ... So we do support fair trade (products)."

Endangered Species Chocolate offers all-natural Halloween dark and milk chocolate that come in bite-size squares and, according to their website, are free of processed sugars, hydrogenated fats, and harmful chemicals. The company also buys chocolate from a co-op in Nigeria which provides fair wages to family operated farms. Packages of the Halloween treats can be purchased on the company's website.

Another online source for Halloween friendly treats is Global Exchange, a fair trade online store. The website offers the Fair Trade Trick-or-Treat Action Kit. The kit includes fair trade chocolate in the shape of gold coins as well as an eco-friendly bag to trick-or-treat with.

Yellowknifers have limited options for local places to shop for organic and fair trade products although some stores, like Sutherland's Drugs and Javaroma do carry some, however they are not specifically tailored for the haunting season.

The Halloween specific treats will mainly be found online for now, as Montreuil pointed out.

"The problem is a lot of (fair trade companies) don't carry Halloween-size chocolate," she said.

With some companies now offering the products online she said she hoped some Yellowknife merchants will begin to carry fair trade treats for Halloween.