.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&ch=DPR%2CWidth&auto=compress)
Hello everyone, this is Saro Guarrasi, one of the founders of the Cooperative Quetzal, a fair trade shop that is now more than twenty years old; in 1995, when we founded the cooperative, our idea was to promote the fair trade in Modica; this experience was already developing in the North of Italy and we thought it was fundamental for our town to develop it here as well.
After five years we started a project using raw materials of the fair trade in order to produce the typical chocolate of Modica. So, in line with the faire trade we started producing something typical of our town that, at the same time, had the specific feature to be produced with raw materials of the fair trade.
In the North of Italy the fair trade realities are mainly managed by volunteers; however, we want to combine the fair trade and give craftsmen and peasants of the South of the World an opportunity to work, and give the same opportunity to the South of Europe and Italy; we have managed to do it in the last twenty years. Nowadays the cooperative has hired eight people in total, considering the fair trade shop and the laboratory’s workers.
We mainly produce chocolate of Modica, even if not only have we considered our cooperative as a place of production but also as a place of consumption, especially for schools, from children up to young people. In fact, we organize guided tours, allowing people to visit the laboratory so that they can understand how chocolate is produced. Furthermore, we want people to get used to using raw materials and trying to prepare home-made chocolate.
In conclusion, it is interesting for us to join the project promoted by Federico Spazzoli and others, so that we can be connected with each other and conduct proposals able to appraise our territory, our excellences, (for example Manna and hazelnut from Madonie); here in Modica, not only have we the chocolate but also other products, like the broad bean or the bean, oil and carob. So, not only does this projects promote a product, but it mainly appraises a territory.