A spoonful of stubbornness and a cup of cocoa beans stirred with a passion for food and cooked in the heat of Africa served up Steve Wallace's career.

Wallace, a Milwaukee native, is the owner and founder of the Omanhene Cocoa Bean Co., a fair trade fine chocolate company. Founded in 1991, Omanhene is the first chocolate company to produce its product entirely in the west African nation of Ghana. Ghana produces what has been called some of the world's finest cocoa, which was traditionally sold to chocolate companies that exported it to their factories around the world where it would be manufactured and then redistributed for sale.

Wallace changed that.

In 1994, after years of working with cocoa farmers and African government officials, Wallace produced the first chocolate bar ever made entirely in Ghana.

"This really is a labor of love," Wallace said, referring to the years of hard work and little results. "It's something I really believe in."

Wallace's interest in Ghana first began in 1978 when the then-16-year-old won a scholarship through the American Field Service International to spend a summer there. Wallace said he stayed with a traditional host family (complete with a father, his three wives and their 21 children), witnessed a military uprising, fell ill with unpleasant African diseases and gained experiences that would eventually inspire him to start his company. The name Omanhene comes from the Twi-language title given to a king or chief who is the ethical and moral authority in Ghana.

"Everything about Ghana fascinated me … Without question there is no way I would be doing what I do now" if I hadn't taken that trip, Wallace said.

According to Wallace, producing the chocolate in Ghana is more beneficial than any act of charity because it provides the economy with more jobs and treats workers justly. Today Omanhene is known not only for its fine chocolate, but also for its fair trade policy.

According to Al Liu, the director of culture and communication at Alterra Coffee Roasters, which sells some Omanhene products like cocoa power, fair trade is somewhat difficult to explain.

"I define fair trade as a consumer-based movement to guarantee that producers of small-scale products grown in developing countries receive a fair price," he said.

Liu said if a large number of people purchase fair trade products, there will be significant results.

Students can be part of the fair trade movement by seeking out such products.

"In order to change the system we have to demand alternatives," said Melanie Benesh, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences. Benesh said she thought students should ask stores to carry more fair trade products in the hope that one day conditions for workers in developing countries will improve.

"It's a really easy way for us to make a significant impact," she said.

Wallace said consumers could take it one step further and research the products they purchase. He said that just because something is marked with a fair trade sticker doesn't mean it would meet the average American's idea of justice and that consumers should really research a company before supporting it.

"Fair trade isn't the whole story," he said. "You have to go beyond."