168: Shawn Askinosie | Quest To Do Meaningful Work
In 2005, Shawn Askinosie left a successful career as a criminal defense lawyer to start a bean to bar chocolate factory and never looked back.
Askinosie Chocolate is a small batch, award winning chocolate factory located in Springfield, Missouri, sourcing 100% of their beans directly from farmers. The only chocolate maker working directly with cocoa farmers on four continents, Shawn travels to regions of Ecuador, the Philippines and Tanzania to source cocoa beans for his chocolate. This allows the chocolate to be traced to the source and labeled authentic single origin. It also enables Askinosie Chocolate to profit share with the farmers, giving them a “Stake In the Outcome,” a principle he learned from author/entrepreneur Jack Stack.
Recently named by Forbes One of the 25 Best Small Companies in America, Askinosie Chocolate has also been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, on Bloomberg, MSNBCand numerous other national and international media outlets.
The Askinosie Chocolate mission is to serve their farmers, their neighborhood, their customers and each other, sharing the Askinosie Chocolate experience by leaving the world a better place than they found it. The company is currently sustainably feeding over 1,600 students per day in Tanzania and the Philippines, without any donations. Founded at the forefront of the American craft chocolate revolution and regarded by many as a vanguard in the industry, Askinosie Chocolate sets the standard: they are one of the few chocolate makers in the world who press their own cocoa butter (to make their chocolate truly single origin) and the only American craft chocolate maker to produce a natural cocoa powder; they were the first American craft chocolate makers to create white chocolate, as well as a chocolate hazelnut spread (says The New York Times: “one spoonful of Askinosie’s Chocolate Hazelnut Spread and all memory of Nutella is gone”).
Shawn was named by O, The Oprah Magazine One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World. They said, Why we're fans: The philanthropically-minded chocolate entrepreneur aims to get students thinking about business ethics in a way that could have ripple effects for generations. For his efforts in Advancing food standards... by creating social, economic, and environmental impact, Shawn was awarded Top Business Leader of the Year in 2013 by the Specialty Food Association. Shawn has been awarded honorary doctorates from University of Missouri-Columbia and Missouri State University. In 2015, Askinosie Chocolate was awarded a complimentary membership to the Clinton Global Initiative for the company’s social efforts around the world. Seth Godin, entrepreneur and author, recently praised the company's model: [Shawn] has built a practice of creating a worthwhile luxury good that directly benefits people. Not sort of. Not a little. But directly.”
Askinosie Chocolate has received 3 Good Food Awards, considered to be the Oscars of food; 6 silver awards from the Specialty Food Association; and 7 International Chocolate Awards, including the Gold World Award for the Dark Chocolate + Licorice bar. The small team at Askinosie works directly with all of their retailers and sells their chocolate into specialty food stores, luxury boutiques, and high-end grocery chains throughout the US in nearly all fifty states and across the globe.
Shawn's book, recently released, co-written with his daughter Lawren, published by Penguin titled Meaningful Work: The Quest To Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul is an Amazon #1 New Release. Read Seth Godin's review of the book here. He is a Family Brother at Assumption Abbey, a Trappist monastery near Ava, Missouri and the co-founder of Lost & Found, a grief center serving children and families in Southwest Missouri.
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Find Your Calling Where It Hurts | Shawn Askinosie | TEDxOklahomaCity
Is there hope to find purpose and passion after heartbreak? Shawn Askinosie shares his quest to discover meaningful work – a search that led him from his life as a highly successful criminal defense lawyer into the palliative care department of a hospital. And how that led to founding one of the first small batch bean to bar chocolate factories in North America. Shawn will show you how to redeem your sorrow, serve someone who needs you, and find your true self in the mystery of it all. Finally, he invites you to discover immeasurable joy through the most unexpected place – your own broken heart. In 2006, Shawn Askinosie left a successful career as a criminal defense lawyer to start a bean to bar chocolate factory and never looked back. Askinosie Chocolate is a small batch, award winning chocolate factory located in Springfield, Missouri, sourcing 100% of their beans directly from farmers that they profit share with on three continents. This spring will mark Shawn’s 42nd origin trip. Recently named by Forbes “One of the 25 Best Small Companies in America”, Askinosie Chocolate has also been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, on Bloomberg, MSNBC and numerous other national and international media outlets. Shawn was named by O, The Oprah Magazine “One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World.”
He has been awarded honorary doctorates from University of Missouri-Columbia and Missouri State University. Seth Godin, entrepreneur and author, recently praised the company’s model: “[Shawn] has built a practice of creating a worthwhile luxury good that directly benefits people. Not sort of. Not a little. But directly.”
Shawn is a Family Brother at Assumption Abbey, a Trappist monastery near Ava, Missouri and the co-founder of Lost & Found, a grief center serving children and families in Southwest Missouri. His new book – Meaningful Work: The Quest To Do Great Business, Find Your Calling And Feed Your Soul, co-written with his daughter Lawren Askinosie, published by Penguin Random House released last year and is already a #1 bestseller on Amazon. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at
Askinosie Chocolate University Tanzania Trip with Student Interviews; by Bob Linder
Watch this 10 minute video about the Askinosie Chocolate University Tanzania trip with student interviews. Be inspired, and share it with your friends.
Details: or
This past July Askinosie Chocolate founder, Shawn Askinosie, took a group of carefully selected Springfield, MO high school students to remote Tenende, Tanzania. Before the 10-day trip, the students stayed at Drury University to take part in a weeklong immersion with classes about social business, entrepreneurship, cacao agronomy, Tanzanian culture, Swahili and more. While in Tenende, the students met with farmers and worked on projects involved with Mwaya Secondary School, with which Askinosie Chocolate has developed a relationship for over two years. The projects at Mwaya were: (1) implementation of a 100% self-sustaining school lunch program to address malnutrition (the 1,100 students now eat only one meal per day) so they can study and (2) assisted the Headmaster in execution of a Khan video learning program on laptops and projectors throughout the school that has no electricity. Through a generous donation, Chocolate University has also funded the school's first and only computer teacher to manage the new video-learning program. Also, our CU students facilitated discussions with the Empowered Girls club at the school, a program funded by CU that aims to increase the retention and graduation rate of female students.
Shawn Askinosie also took 13 high school students to Tenende, Tanzania in summer of 2010. Students specifically sought a woman led cocoa farmer group and Mama Kyeja -- now pictured on the front of the chocolate bar package -- left an indelible impression on them all. This marked the first time that a chocolate maker has traded directly with a Tanzanian cocoa farmer group. During that program, CU students and Askinosie Chocolate raised money for math, science and English textbooks for Mwaya and also funded a deep water well to provide clean water to the 2,000 villagers of Tenende, which is something the new crop of student travelers got to see.
At Askinosie, we believe that exposing young people to the developing world on short-term trips has the potential to change the world. The success of the trip can best be summed up by the text message that one student sent to his mother during the trip: This is the best day of my life.
Special thanks to Bob Linder who traveled with the group this summer for his photo and video artistry.
Shawn Askinosie on Bloomberg - Part 1
Shawn Askinosie on Bloomberg
Meaningful Work with Shawn Askinosie // Good / True / & Beautiful with Ashton Gustafson
In 2005, Shawn Askinosie left a successful career as a criminal defense lawyer to start a bean to bar chocolate factory and never looked back.
Askinosie Chocolate is a small batch, award winning chocolate factory located in Springfield, Missouri, sourcing 100% of their beans directly from farmers. The only chocolate maker working directly with cocoa farmers on four continents, Shawn travels to regions of Ecuador, the Philippines and Tanzania to source cocoa beans for his chocolate. This allows the chocolate to be traced to the source and labeled authentic single origin. It also enables Askinosie Chocolate to profit share with the farmers, giving them a “Stake In the Outcome,” a principle he learned from author/entrepreneur Jack Stack.
Recently named by Forbes One of the 25 Best Small Companies in America, Askinosie Chocolate has also been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, on Bloomberg, MSNBCand numerous other national and international media outlets. The Askinosie Chocolate mission is to serve their farmers, their neighborhood, their customers and each other, sharing the Askinosie Chocolate experience by leaving the world a better place than they found it. The company is currently sustainably feeding over 1,600 students per day in Tanzania and the Philippines, without any donations. Founded at the forefront of the American craft chocolate revolution and regarded by many as a vanguard in the industry, Askinosie Chocolate sets the standard: they are one of the few chocolate makers in the world who press their own cocoa butter (to make their chocolate truly single origin) and the only American craft chocolate maker to produce a natural cocoa powder; they were the first American craft chocolate makers to create white chocolate, as well as a chocolate hazelnut spread (says The New York Times: “one spoonful of Askinosie’s Chocolate Hazelnut Spread and all memory of Nutella is gone”). Shawn was named by O, The Oprah Magazine One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World. They said, Why we're fans: The philanthropically-minded chocolate entrepreneur aims to get students thinking about business ethics in a way that could have ripple effects for generations. For his efforts in Advancing food standards... by creating social, economic, and environmental impact,
Shawn was awarded Top Business Leader of the Year in 2013 by the Specialty Food Association. Shawn has been awarded honorary doctorates from University of Missouri-Columbia and Missouri State University. In 2015, Askinosie Chocolate was awarded a complimentary membership to the Clinton Global Initiative for the company’s social efforts around the world.
Seth Godin, entrepreneur and author, recently praised the company's model: [Shawn] has built a practice of creating a worthwhile luxury good that directly benefits people. Not sort of. Not a little. But directly.” Askinosie Chocolate has received 3 Good Food Awards, considered to be the Oscars of food; 6 silver awards from the Specialty Food Association; and 7 International Chocolate Awards, including the Gold World Award for the Dark Chocolate + Licorice bar. The small team at Askinosie works directly with all of their retailers and sells their chocolate into specialty food stores, luxury boutiques, and high-end grocery chains throughout the US in nearly all fifty states and across the globe. Shawn's book, recently released, co-written with his daughter Lawren, published by Penguin titled Meaningful Work: The Quest To Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul is an Amazon #1 New Release. Read Seth Godin's review of the book here. He is a Family Brother at Assumption Abbey, a Trappist monastery near Ava, Missouri and the co-founder of Lost & Found, a grief center serving children and families in Southwest Missouri.
Welcome to Springfield - Thrive 360
Explore just a taste of what Springfield, MO has to offer in 360 degrees!
Drury D.Cycle:
Askinosie Chocolate:
Casper's Chili:
Downtown Springfield:
Hurts Donuts:
Springfield Parks:
Big chocolate companies not doing enough to stop child labor, activists say
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – While Halloween is just a few days away, Green America is urging people to not hand out chocolate from big companies, claiming a lot of them don’t do enough to stop child labor in the countries from which they receive their cocoa beans.
Green America is non-profit that works to promote a ‘green’ economy and it recently released its “Chocolate Scorecard.”
It ranks chocolate companies based on an ‘A’ through ‘F’ scale on their sustainability and human rights efforts.
“We’ve been looking at the chocolate industry for about ten years now and encouraging the large players to improve their conduct,” said Todd Larsen, executive co-director at Green America.
Among the bigger chocolate companies on the scorecard are Mars, Lindt, Hershey (all of which received at least above a ‘D’) and GODIVA (which received an ‘F’).
“At the top, are the companies that are doing the best things. These are small companies. They’re dedicated to working in the cocoa sector in a way that produces a sustainable product and one that actually helps its farmers and one that is not engaging in child labor,” Larsen said. “The companies at the bottom of the scorecard, including the ones that get like a ‘D’ and an ‘F,’ are the ones that are doing less.”
The one chocolate company to receive an ‘F’: GODIVA.
GODIVA sent OzarksFirst this statement in response to the scorecard:
GODIVA condemns forced labor or any practice that exploits, endangers or harms people, especially children. We do not own farms and purchase our cocoa through third parties which puts us at a distinct disadvantage on scorecards such as these that don’t allow for an accurate representation of our longstanding commitment to people and [the] planet. We ensure ethical sourcing through agreements with our suppliers to comply with our GODIVA Code of Conduct, which explicitly prohibits the use of forced and child labor.”
TARA MCTEAGUE, GODIVA
One local chocolate company says it’s the opposite of companies with low grades.
“We’re the antithesis of that,” said Shawn Askinosie, CEO and Founder of Askinosie Chocolate in Springfield.
Askinosie gets his cocoa beans from farmers in Tanzania, Philippines, Ecuador and the Amazon.
“Most of this problem, I would say, 98 percent of this problem, is focused on two countries in West Africa: Ghana and Ivory Coast,” Askinosie said. “Interestingly, both of those countries make up about 70 percent of the world’s supply of cocoa beans for chocolate.
“If you spend $1.50 on that bar, thinking it’s a value, it’s really on the backs of child slave labor, making and harvesting those cocoa beans that went into that cheap chocolate bar. So there’s a price to pay for that.”
Askinosie says the best way to fix the problem is to start with the companies themselves, but to also remember consumers can play a role as well.
“As we gain more awareness, then we have a greater responsibility to make the right decision when it comes to cheap chocolate,” said Askinosie.
“As consumers, we do have role,” Larsen said. “However, we can push companies to actually do the right thing and we can agree to pay a little bit more for our chocolate in order to help finance these efforts to support farmers in West Africa and ensure that kids aren’t engaged in child labor.”
Askinosie says the solution starts with the conversation.
“I think people will talk about it,” said Askinosie. “Then the question is, will it inform their buying decisions? I hope it does.”
Shawn Askinosie on Fox Business News 2/29/08
Shawn Askinosie on America's Nightly Scoreboard with David Asman on Fox Business News
Tanzania Time Capsule; by Bob Linder
Watch this 3 minute video about the Askinosie Chocolate University Tanzania trip. Be inspired, and share it with your friends.
Details: and
This past July Askinosie Chocolate founder, Shawn Askinosie, took a group of carefully selected Springfield, MO high school students to remote Tenende, Tanzania. Before the 10-day trip, the students stayed at Drury University to take part in a weeklong immersion with classes about social business, entrepreneurship, cacao agronomy, Tanzanian culture, Swahili and more. While in Tenende, the students met with farmers and worked on projects involved with Mwaya Secondary School, with which Askinosie Chocolate has developed a relationship for over two years. The projects at Mwaya were: (1) implementation of a 100% self-sustaining school lunch program to address malnutrition (the 1,100 students now eat only one meal per day) so they can study and (2) assisted the Headmaster in execution of a Khan video learning program on laptops and projectors throughout the school that has no electricity. Through a generous donation, Chocolate University has also funded the school's first and only computer teacher to manage the new video-learning program. Also, our CU students facilitated discussions with the Empowered Girls club at the school, a program funded by CU that aims to increase the retention and graduation rate of female students.
Shawn Askinosie also took 13 high school students to Tenende, Tanzania in summer of 2010. Students specifically sought a woman led cocoa farmer group and Mama Kyeja -- now pictured on the front of the chocolate bar package -- left an indelible impression on them all. This marked the first time that a chocolate maker has traded directly with a Tanzanian cocoa farmer group. During that program, CU students and Askinosie Chocolate raised money for math, science and English textbooks for Mwaya and also funded a deep water well to provide clean water to the 2,000 villagers of Tenende, which is something the new crop of student travelers got to see.
At Askinosie, we believe that exposing young people to the developing world on short-term trips has the potential to change the world. The success of the trip can best be summed up by the text message that one student sent to his mother during the trip: This is the best day of my life.
Special thanks to Bob Linder who traveled with the group this summer for his photo and video artistry.
Springfield, Missouri: Metropolitan Birthplace of Route 66
See all the things to do on your vacation in Springfield, Missouri – including restaurants, shopping and many other attractions.
Shawn Askinosie: Life Behind Bars (Arabic Subtitles)
Shawn Askinosie, small-batch bean to bar chocolate maker, talks about the adventure of chocolate making (Arabic subtitles)
2014 UIS Commencement Address by Donovan Pepper
The 2014 University of Illinois Springfield Commencement address was delivered on May 17, 2014 by UIS alum Donovan Pepper, national director of local government relations for Walgreens. He earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees in political studies from UIS.
Student Talks about Training before Tanzania Trip
Listen to our Chocolate University student, Kelsey, talk about her experience on the ropes course before the group of 15 students leave for remote Tanzania on Friday.
For more information about Chocolate University, check out our blog:
For more information about Askinosie Chocolate, check out our website:
2017 Pinnacle Award - Roseann Bentley
On Thursday, February 16, 2017, Roseann Bentley was presented with the Pinnacle Award, honoring individuals who have been active in the travel industry for many years and have made substantial contributions to the betterment of the Springfield area’s travel industry.
Bentley, former Greene County commissioner and state senator, improved the city’s travel and tourism industry in many ways, including improving the environment and infrastructure and helping obtain funding for Wonders of Wildlife. While serving in the Missouri Senate, Bentley also was a member of the Tourism Commission, the governing body for the Missouri Division of Tourism.
Governor Quinn Visits Chicago Chocolate Business as Illinois Comeback Continues
CHICAGO – As Illinois’ unemployment rate continued falling to its lowest point in more than six years, Governor Pat Quinn today visited Vosges Haut-Chocolat in Chicago to discuss the state’s ongoing economic comeback. In September, Illinois’ unemployment rate dropped for the seventh consecutive month, from 6.7 to 6.6 percent, the lowest level since June 2008. Today’s event is part of the Governor’s agenda to create jobs and drive Illinois’ economy forward.