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Jody's Story




Northern Harvest: Twenty Women in Food and Farming
Https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/northern-harvest

JODY DOTSON HAYDEN

Jody was born in southern Arkansas with the southern tradition of home cooking, and when the family moved to Iowa her mother continued the tradition including gardening.
“I only knew a few other people who were really committed to gardening like my mom was. We always had fresh vegetables. . . . I remember for show and tell when I was a young girl my mom sent me to school with a kiwi. All the other children would take toys, and I arrived with a kiwi.”

What shaped Jody’s future life was a graduate school year of fieldwork in Chiapas, Mexico, living with indigenous Mayan farmers. “I got to see it firsthand, what was happening in places like Chiapas.” The farmers were being exploited, the money going to intermediaries, and very little to the actual growers. With her then husband, Chris Streeter, Jody founded Higher Ground, one of the first ten fair trade companies buying coffee beans from farmers’ co-ops directly. This history meant that when Jody and her present husband, D.C. Hayden, took over Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate from Mimi Wheeler in 2012, she was already familiar with Central America and with the sorry history of exploitation.  She and her family often travel to Ecuador to meet with the cacoa growers, sometimes taking others with them to share the experience and see for themselves.
“There is this wonderful dynamic that happens when you meet the cacao farmers for the first time, and you see how labor-intensive it is, what work goes into it.”

In addition to sourcing the best chocolate from Ecuador and paying fair trade prices, Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate sources from local growers for its milk and fruits and teas and syrups.
“If we can get it local, we do. Of course, we pay more for that.  We could make more money if we sourced everything more cheaply. And that’s what a lot of chocolate companies do. . . But we do great chocolate first and foremost and then we add really great ingredients to that. And for us, it is really about supporting our local economy whenever we can.”

To read more of Jody’s story and the story of 19 other amazing women in the food business, Northern Harvest is now available. You can order online from any bookstore or from the Press. May 5 is the official publication date, but a friend who pre-ordered received hers today!

And as Mother’s Day approaches, check out www.grocersdaughter.com for amazing chocolates  for that occasion. The store has a “no cash/no contact” pick-up plan for those of you lucky to be nearby so you can shop safely, or you can place orders for shipping wherever you are. Phone# to order: 231-326-3030.

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