The late Mott Green / Photo by Karen Kirchhoff.

When Mott Green founded the Grenada Chocolate Company Cooperative in 1999, it was his mission to not only make the “best chocolate in the world,” but also do so ethically and sustainably — “Tree to Bar,” as he put it.

The award-winning dark chocolate made by the small Hermitage, Grenada-based company is organic, produced by solar-power machinery built by Green’s hands. The operation is also a worker-owned coop, in business with small local cocoa farmers and as many as 50 factory workers, and offering employee shareholding and fair wages. It’s an ethical, sustainable model wholly in line with Green’s overarching personality the Washington-born, New York-raised activist dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1980s because he didn’t want to surrender to the confines of regular society. He spent much of his 20s squatting around West Philly and dedicating his time to homeless activism.

The work that Green, who died suddenly on June 1st at the age of 47 while working at his factory, committed his life to is also the subject of the 2012 documentary, Nothing Like Chocolate. Directed by Kum-Kum Bhavnani and narrated by Susan Sarandon, the film tells the stories of Green and Nelice Stewart, an independent cocoa farmer in Grenada, and how the Caribbean island “has become home to this revolutionary venture”—an organic, ethical chocolate made in a country where chocolate productions is often a “dirty industry,” said Bull Gervasi, produce & facilities manager of Mariposa Food Co-op, which was one of the first in Philadelphia to sell Green’s chocolate bars 10 years ago. Grenada Chocolate Company is sold online and in stores across Europe and the States, with a flagship store recently opened in the Caribbean country. 

“He had done this thing that had never been done before—a small scale chocolate factory in a chocolate producing country,” said the 39-year-old Gervasi, who visited Green and the company in Grenada this past January with Karen Kirchhoff—an experience he called “really beautiful and inspiring.”

“I always thought that he was a really interesting fellow and inspiring character,” he said.

In honor of Green and his mission, Gervasi will screen Nothing Like Chocolate Wednesday, July 24 at the International House Philadelphia, 3701 Chestnut Street, at 8 p.m. Mariposa will be present sampling and selling Grenada Chocolate, and Kirchhoff will exhibit her photos from the winter trip. Green Street will also be on hand selling and sampling its fair trade coffee.

“[This documentary is] just an inspiring example of what one person’s passion and commitment can do to help improve or change other people’s lives, and I generally don’t feel like there’s enough examples of that in the media,” Gervasi told West Philly Local. “Once he had this idea, he was focused on it…He devoted his life to it.”

Screening Details:

Nothing Like Chocolate
Wednesday, July 24 at 8 p.m.
International House Philadelphia, 3701 Chestnut Street

–Annamarya Scaccia