Jody is co-owner of a small craft chocolate confections business in Northern Michigan, Grocer's Daughter Chocolate (GDC). She is committed to sourcing ethically traded chocolate for her shop's recipes (and loads of local ingredients like cream, honey, fruits, spirits/beer, tea/coffee, nut/seed butters) . And GDC devotes a great deal of their resources educating customers about the realities of the cocoa industry.

Previous to owning Grocer's Daughter Chocolate, Jody worked for 15 years in specialty coffee, sourcing from small scale fair trade co-ops around the globe, leading trips to origin and serving as owner/operator of Higher Grounds Trading Co based in Traverse City, M, one of the first 100% fair trade coffee roasters in the nation. Jody served on the board of Cooperative Coffees, an innovative green bean importing co-op, in various capacities and is excited about the prospects of a creating a similar model in chocolate.
At the NW Chocolate Festival, we're launching a new craft chocolate project - The Chocolate Squad - created to serve as a community for craft chocolatiers and pastry chefs as well as a supplier of community-sourced chocolates and other cocoa supplies, starting with Conexion Chocolates as our initial partner. Conexion Chocolates is a woman-sourced and -formulated line of direct trade chocolate couvertures from Ecuador, created with the help of industry-leading confectioners and pastry chefs.