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Editors’ note: 

The weekly TGCvocations column asks practitioners about their jobs and how they integrate their faith and work. Interviews are conducted and condensed by Bethany L. Jenkins, director of TGC’s Every Square Inch.

Every Square Inch Cropped

Mark Edwards is chief operating officer at Edward Marc Chocolatier, a Pittsburgh-based chocolate company founded in 1914 by his great-grandparents. Previously, he worked in the White House Office of Presidential Advance.

How did Edward Marc begin?

In 1914, my great-grandparents emigrated from Greece and moved to Pittsburgh, where they rented a small apartment and sold candied fruit on the street. When chocolate began getting popular in Pennsylvania, they started covering their candy in it. Eventually, they opened a retail shop with a soda fountain, which became a community hangout during the depression. We had that shop until 2002, when a fire destroyed it. We’re now a fourth-generation family business with retail stores in Pittsburgh and inside the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

In what ways has the company changed?

A few years ago, we opened a retail shop in Pittsburgh called The Milk Shake Factory. Like my great-grandparents’ store with the soda fountain, The Milk Shake Factory is a gathering place for our community. People buy chocolate or choose from one of our 55 milkshake flavors and just hang out there. Also, my generation launched Edward Marc, our gourmet brand. Last year, we partnered with Costco to create Snappers, America’s next great snack.

Where do you get your chocolate from?

Our company sources its chocolate from bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturers like Wilbur, Guittard, and Blommer. We blend specific single-source chocolate from these manufacturers to achieve the Edward Marc Signature blend.

Are you able to source it ethically?

We only buy and sell fair trade or fair trade certified chocolate. Our vendors pay fair prices to cocoa growers and then sell us the chocolate they manufacture. We began discussions about moving toward direct trade because, just like in all business, we need to have an economically viable supply chain. That means we need to pay workers what they are owed. We see it as something that may be a necessity so that we can continue to provide a great value to the loyal customers who have been enjoying our products for the past 100 years.

Isn’t chocolate a pretty healthy ingredient?

The health benefit of chocolate is what comes out of the bean—the chocolate liquor, which is a mixture of cocoa powder and cocoa butter. Chocolate liquor is high in polyphenols, which are antioxidants that eliminate or neutralize free radicals from the body. Free radicals are dangerous because they often injure other cells, damaging their DNA, which creates the seed for cardiovascular disease. The higher the percentage of cocoa in a chocolate bar, the more polyphenols it has and, therefore, the healthier it is.

What kinds of countercultural business practices have you adopted that have been informed by your faith?

As Christians, we want to do our work with excellence and make great chocolate for our customers. We want to serve and accept everyone who walks in our doors. Also, we have made compassion and philanthropy the foundation of our business model. Through our program, One Sweet Gesture, 20 percent of every purchase goes to one of our four partner charities. Touch a Life Foundation, for example, rescues child slaves in Ghana. They give these children an opportunity of a new life, and we do what we can in our small way to support their humanitarian efforts.

Edward Marc

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.
To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.

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