LONDON, UK — A brand new book written by an English Author is due to be published in the United States next week, revealing closely guarded secrets of the global chocolate industry, and how the Author landed the “dream job,” of a global chocolate taster and the realities that come with it.
The book, Bittersweet, by Angus Kennedy in the UK, is making an unprecedented entry into the US this month with an uptake of no less than 16 U.S. T.V. stations, to interview the author plus America’s number one breakfast T.V. program, The Today Show.
Bittersweet: The Life and Times of the World’s Leading Chocolate Taster (Apollo Publishers, New York; will be released on July 23rd, 2018; $24.99; Hardcover; and in bookstores across America and online book retailers across the globe.
Commenting on the launch of his book, Kennedy said. “You don’t apply for the best jobs in the world, you create them! I’m not surprised there is a huge interest in the U.S. in Bittersweet. Chocolate is close to people’s hearts and especially in the USA, it is the biggest chocolate market in the world.
It’s about time people knew what was going on. In particular child labour and farmer’s annual pay; nothing is actually working to stamp it out.
Now I have written Bittersweet, I have been invited to live on a cocoa farm in Africa to work as a labourer and earn just .54 cents a day, and survive on that! It will be tough but it’s the only to way to show people in the end”*
In his book he reveals:
- how 2.1 million children in W. Africa are still working on cocoa farms and being exploited. Farmers make just 3% of the retail sale price of chocolate and some earn just .54 cents a day.
- how to determine the quality of chocolate.
- how many chocolate producers don’t make their own chocolate.
- Is there such a thing as healthy chocolate?
- crop failure / climate change, temperature rise and the potential end of chocolate by 2025
- how to stay the same weight and eat all the chocolate you want!
Bittersweet also follows Angus’ inspirational tale of his unconventional Willy-Wonka style childhood in London.
A story of a Vodka-swilling mother, cancer-ravaged father, meals of just candy; and how he failed his way to success to become the world’s leading chocolate expert, and filmed  a video for Business Insider , which received a record-high 12.7 million views, now one of the most-watched videos on chocolate of all time.
*In October 2018, Angus has been invited by a Nigerian King to live and work as a cocoa farm labourer to experience the daily hardships faced by farmers; many on just .54 cents a day.
Angus Kennedy is also the current editor of Kennedy’s Confection magazine and the founder of the London Chocolate Forum, father of five and lives with his family in Kent, England.
