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Dr Kristy Leissle
Dr. Kristy Leissle is a scholar of cocoa and chocolate.
Since 2004, she has researched and written about the politics, economics, and cultures of the cocoa-chocolate trade in Africa, Europe, and North America. Her work reveals the realities of everyday life for the women and men who make chocolate possible, especially in West Africa.
Among other works, Dr. Leissle is the author of Cocoa, on industry politics, and the series, “I am a cocoa farmer,” for ConfectioneryNews, where she serves on the Editorial Board. She is currently researching for a book on Africa’s contributions to global chocolate.
Dr. Leissle is Affiliate Faculty in African Studies at the University of Washington, and Co-Founder of the Cocoapreneurship Institute of Ghana. She lives in Accra.
Cocoa
In this incisive book, Kristy Leissle reveals how cocoa, which brings pleasure and wealth to relatively few, depends upon an extensive global trade system that exploits the labor of five million growers, as well as countless other workers and vulnerable groups.
As calls for justice in the industry have grown louder, Leissle reveals the possibilities for and constraints upon realizing a truly sustainable and fulfilling livelihood for cocoa growers, and for keeping the world full of chocolate.
As James Field wrote in his review for Geographical, reading Cocoa, “will guarantee you never look at chocolate the same way again.”
