Cal Poly professor Tom Neuhaus is launching a local gourmet chocolate company he hopes will earn a profit in a socially responsible way.

Neuhaus plans to make his candy using chocolate that is fair-traded -- meaning producers in developing countries receive a "fair" or living wage for the goods they sell to developed countries. He describes the approach as a mixture of altruism and capitalism.

"It doesn't have to be Darwinian survival of the fittest," Neuhaus says. "I think you can actually make a living doing good."

He sold his first sample boxes at a local church fund-raiser in December, using chocolate produced by the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative of 40,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana. Neuhaus visited the co-op recently and plans to use part of his candy sale profits to help the group purchase a $1,400 palm-oil extractor to diversify their business.

So far he has raised $517 by selling more than 200 boxes of candy and donating a third of each $7.50 box to the Ghana cooperative. On Sunday he will sell chocolates at the "Share the Dream" event at the Clark Center in Arroyo Grande, and again in front of the Mission in San Luis Obispo on Feb. 7 and 8.

Neuhaus became aware of the fair-trade issue teaching food and culture classes at the university, prompting a visit to Ghana. Inspired by what he saw, Neuhaus returned to America determined to turn his passion for chocolate and a growing interest in social justice into a business.

But he is finding the road to beneficent entrepreneur is more difficult to navigate than he expected. He's since learned that to commercially produce candy using 100 percent fair-traded chocolate would require a hefty initial investment of $600,000. He's also found that getting his product on mainstream supermarket shelves may be unrealistic.

So Neuhaus has decided to scale back. By using a blend of 30 percent fair-trade chocolate mixed with standard production chocolate, he says he can still make a small profit and achieve his goals selling to natural food markets such as Whole Foods and New Frontiers.