2023 Zotter is awarded the Environmental Management Award in Berlin for the best strategy for sustainable corporate development.
2023 Zotter wins the Animal Welfare Award of the Province of Styria, for particularly animal-friendly construction in rural areas.
2022 Zotter takes first place in the overall ranking as "Best Employer in Styria" in the market study by the Market Institute/Linz for the third time in a row.
2022 Zotter supports a project of Jugend eine Welt with "Chocolate for School" in Madagascar, where school meals are financed for 700 children. For every bar of this variety sold, 50 cents go towards the project.
2021 Zotter is awarded the AUSTRIAN SDG AWARD 2020 sustainability prize in the category "corporate".
2021 Zotter wins the Trigos Steiermark for the Zotter Experience World as an exemplary, holistic CSR project.
2021 The Market Institute analysed Styrian employers and in the topics examined, Zotter was ranked first in the areas of regional relevance, taking into account the creation of jobs, social and ecological values. Zotter thus emerges as the best employer again this year with a large lead and receives the "Market Quality Award - Overall Winner Styria 2021".
2020 With our charity chocolate Chocolate Banana, we are supporting a new project: 50 cents out of every chocolate sold go towards the Caritas children’s charity project “Chocolate for School” in Uganda.
2018 Zotter receives the Austria‘s Leading Companies (ALC) Special Award for the Corporate Integration of People with Disabilities. Josef Zotter: "As a family business, I see integration on every level not just as our responsibility but also as one of our strengths. Maximising humanity is our biggest asset, and it is our obligation to nurture the strongest as well as people who have been disadvantaged in life!"
2018 Zotter renounces the Fairtrade seal and creates a new Fair “hand sign” as his logo. The company is taking this step in order to distance themselves from the mass balance practices used in the Fairtrade system. Instead, Zotter will still keep its commitment to 100% fair-trade practices by making his raw materials entirely physically traceable. Zotter becomes a member of the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO). The WFTO then go on to examine the company as a whole according to their fair-trade guidelines.
2018 Zotter wins the Energy Globe Styria Award, awarded by the Austrian federal province of Styria and the Energie Steiermark AG. Just a few weeks later, Zotter is selected as the overall national winner of the world’s most prestigious environmental award – the Energy Globe Austria Award, beating over 2.000 projects submitted from 182 countries, for the company’s overall concept of sustainability and environmental protection, ranging from 100% organic ingredients to fair trade practices to green power to having turned their corporate real estate into a transparent adventure park.
2017/2018 Zotter creates the “Chocolate Banana – Chocolate for School” charity chocolate. Every 50 cent of each chocolate sold go to the Chocolate for School” children’s emergency relief project, so Peruvian children, who would normally have to work hard in quarries and brickyards from an early age, can go to school. This project received our support all throughout the 2019/20 season, with a total of 134,000 bars sold and a donation amount of 67,000 Euro.
2015/2016 Zotter releases the "Helping + Nibbling" chocolate bar and creates a relief fund to lend quick and unbureaucratic assistance in disaster emergencies, joining the children’s emergency relief project “School gardens” in Bolivia, the project “School lunches for Roma children” in Hostice (Slovakia) and school lunches for 50 Peruvian children at the “El Huambrillo” Caritas centre he has been financing.
2014 Zotter gets the coveted ISO 14001 and EMAS certificates and now counts among the role models in environmental protection. After turning organic and yielding to fair-trade principles, all measures of environmental protection all across the company have been analysed, evaluated and judged to be exemplary.
2012 Josef Zotter and his family visit Burmese child refugees at Thai camps he supports with his "Yummy" meals for Schools" project. 1 chocolate = 1 school meal. One Burmese refugee child gets one school lunch for each “Chocolate fills you up” bar sold. The project aims to show that each purchase has an effect at the other end of the globe.
2011 A solar power system is installed, covering the power requirements of the Edible Zoo, making it completely energy-independent, a spring is developed to provide a steady water supply; Zotter starts to expand his fleet of electric vehicles and an e-power station is built. All in all, Zotter is now working on being completely self-sufficient on all levels.
2011 Zotter opens the Edible Zoo as an open-air extension to his Chocolate Theatre and Shop. There are a total of 80 hectares of organic farmland, 27 of which have been turned into an organic adventure farm and are accessible to visitors. At the Öko-Essbar restaurant, visitors can enjoy organic food directly from Zotter’s own pastures and gardens, all 100% organic, from herbal lemonades to vegetarian and meat dishes as well as desserts. Zotter’s DelikatEssen from the Edible Zoo offer organic meats and sausages from his own organic farm.
2010 "A Piece of Forest" – the environmentally friendly chocolate. Zotter plants one tree in the rainforest per chocolate bar sold. At this point, there are more than 202.374 trees growing in Laos.
2010 Zotter initiates the "Cocoa not Cocaine" project in Colombia, which focuses on development aid based on economic partnerships. The project is stopped in August 2010 due to life-threatening circumstances and a lack of networks.
2009 "Bad Blumauer Manifest" – for a sustainable operation is initiated by Josef Zotter, Robert Rogner jun. (Spa Therme Blumau) and Johannes Gutmann (Sonnentor).
2008 A free organic food menu for employees is introduced.
2007 Zotter builds his own steam power plant. Biomass and cocoa shell waste provide the basis to produce heat.
2006 Zotter gets involved with the "Quality not Poverty" development aid project and starts actively supporting three Nicaragua cooperatives.
2006 The entire product range goes ORGANIC.
2005 wird mit „Zeichen setzen“ eine Schokolade mit Spendenanteil produziert und bis heute gibt es unter dem Titel „Schokolade macht Schule“ einen Hilfsfonds.
2005 "Zeichen setzen" (set a sign), a chocolate with a donation component, was produced and to this day there is an aid fund under the title "Chocolate for School".
2004 Zotter gets his whole product range in line with fair trade principles.
