Our longtime love story with cocoa, chocolate and vanilla:           After three generations of involvement in the trade of cocoa and vanilla beans and 35 years of experience making single-origin bean-to-bar chocolate in Madagascar, we still found the world of chocolate and vanilla to be a world of discovery and passion. It was time for us to expand our passion to a new horizon. VAO VAO was born.     VAO VAO chocolate is about sharing the great sensory experience that nature allows us to expect from our food.     It is about sharing the very specific “terroir” of Madagascar in the most authentic way, with the most careful of processes we have been perfecting for two generations           While characterized by a sophisticated and subtle flavor profile, Malagasy cocoa and vanilla’s true character are often used to enhance flavors in a wide array of dishes around the world. Rarely do these delicacies get center stage.           To allow our customers the most enjoyable chocolate experience, we do not melt chocolate couverture purchased from another vendor into our bars. We do everything ourselves from scratch, because each step has a direct impact on flavor and quality. VAO VAO’s single-origin “farm-to-your-lips” philosophy ensures you get no undesirable ingredients and no industrial shortcuts. Our entire process is at work to ensure just that.           We welcome you to VAO VAO     We welcome you to the Birthplace for Flavor.                 Micro-finance: how we care about our social responsibility…           We, as individual members of this company, have long valued entrepreneurship and independence. We also have always felt a compelling call to make a difference whenever we could, within whatever our means. That is why we co-founded a micro-finance organization – APEM (Association pour la promotion de l’Entreprise a Madagascar) – in Madagascar twenty five years ago. Since then, we have relentlessly helped it grow through volunteer work, advocacy and funding. Beginning as a modest organization focused on educating, counseling and raising awareness on the opportunities offered by entrepreneurship, APEM has grown over the years into a micro-finance institution able to provide and manage micro-loans by attracting funding from private companies and NGOs alike. APEM’s aim is to foster entrepreneurship and thus help the young aspiring entrepreneurs to create and grow their own venture in an economic environment that has always been challenging in many respects. By giving counseling and then allowing seed-money to individuals, APEM helps them take back control of their livelihood by starting their own venture. Among other donors, APEM received funding from UNICEF and the French Ministry for Cooperation. Its partners include the USAID, the European Union, The French Ministry for Cooperation, the World Bank, SIDI (International Solidarity for Development and Investment company, a French NGO), and the Geneva-based private foundation RAFAD (Research and Application for Alternative Financing for Development). APEM’s successful vision and strategy has been officially acknowledged by the Malagasy Government in 2007. The success of Apem’s model has paved the way for an increasing number of for-profit micro-finance organizations now working in Madagascar. With the increase in micro-finance players, APEM is now largely involved in the drafting of a national micro-finance policy aimed at fostering micro-lending within a framework of rules that remains true to its core values. APEM and its affiliate organizations have served more than 30 000 people over 25 years, most of them in some of the remotest parts of Madagascar. The challenges though are not over. For all those reasons, we, as a company, will continue to support this institution.