As we move forward in some of the most key areas that contribute to the sustainability of the cocoa sector, we are still not where we want to be. Among many of the lessons learned we highlight the value of regular dialogue with clients, farmers, business partners as well as external experts in different areas.
Our tireless work with producers, farmer associations, suppliers and clients is based on deepening the understanding of the needs that exists Cacaos fields and being able to overcome short and long term challenges and at the same time ensure that our activities are aligned to the objectives as a farmer’s company.
Our commitment is corporate responsibility, ensuring the sustainability of the entire cocoa distributive chain with transparency and honesty is an integral part of who we are as a company.
This commitment is part of our history, our values that are reflected in the activities and initiatives that we defend today. While we are proud of our achievements over the years, we recognize that much remains to be done.
We look forward to engaging our customers, consumers and all our human talent of farmers and chocolate consumers on this journey.
Our corporate responsibility and our sustainability activities are aligned with our growth objectives and are anchored to our vision and our values.
General topics relevant to our corporate responsibility.
– Good agricultural practices, traceability and transparency.
– Nutritional habits of the communities, and diseases related to chemical products.
– Human rights, including child labour and forced labour.
– Global markets and demographic changes.
– Climate change.
– Exhaustion of natural resources and fossil energy resources.
– Preservation and conservation of native forests of Cacao Criollo Arriba Nacional (Heirloom)
– Add more farmers to the Quality Control of farms, Good Agricultural Practices, Fermentation and Controlled harvests.
– Continuation of organic cocoa projects and direct supply of organic fertilizers.
– Development of a code for suppliers for traceability reasons.
– Dialogues, trainings, regular seminars to farmers suppliers.
– Regular dialogue with clients, performance monitoring and ensure continuous compliance with their demands and needs.
– Organize visits to farms to learn about the processes and life of farmers, studies, adventures in native forests, remote areas where we operate.
– Interact with civil society organizations working on Sustainability.
We recognize that our business has an influence on the livelihoods of many people throughout Ecuador.
We have a responsibility with all our stakeholders: customers, consumers, farmers, suppliers and collaborators and the communities where we operate.
We are committed to guarantee the safety and quality of our fine cocoa, safeguard the environment and contribute to a sustainable cocoa supply chain since a long time with projects and activities, we take into account three factors: Economic Growth, Ecological Balance and Social Progress.
One of the main challenges that we have to face the most is to solve the training in Good Agricultural Practices in order to be certified organic, the mobilization and logistics of the training team.
The lack of perceived incentives to produce quality cocoa, the poor state of many farms, financing options for pruning, logistics for fine cocoa and so on.
Despite the challenges, we achieved some increases in the volumes and quality of the cocoa delivered.
We investigate the options to establish funds that allow us to develop the vision shared by consumers and producers, provide support to producers, support our efforts to improve the livelihoods of producer members with training, education, health initiatives and sports. In addition, to improve our monitoring and information procedures and processes to improve efficiency and effectiveness, maintain a strong relationship of suppliers with each participating Cacao Origin (each community).
Implement our fair payment and trade system based on the quality of cocoa.
The producers members supply high quality cocoa, receive a higher payment than the traditional market.
A benefit of the business is the opportunity we offer young people who do not attend school, unemployed young adults, women and men in the commune to get a job and develop the skills necessary to make a living from growing or processing premium quality raw cocoa.
“We like to do our business based on mutual trust, respect and fair trade.”
We are an innovative company, our project focuses on improving the knowledge and competitiveness of farmers, improving productivity and quality, promoting crop diversification and improving the efficiency of the supply chain with more equity and transparency.
The company trains farmers to improve production techniques, quality and professionalization of farmers’ organizations to better meet the needs of members and improve access to the best quality seedlings with controlled nurseries.
Financing efforts to provide specialized technical knowledge to guarantee the sustainability of cocoa, focus on the training of farmers and communities, we seek to apply international scientific research to promote economic, social development and environmental protection in the distribution chain of cocoa from the farm to the chocolatier. We prioritize the benefit to the farmer and the family, we seek to improve the economic performance more equitable for the producers in the emerging country, thus guaranteeing healthy and prosperous cocoa crops. Environmental management is important in cocoa communities through the responsible use of resources and biodiversity.
We ensure that children do not suffer damage within the supply chain of cacao we look after that respect human rights, we strongly condemn abusive labour practices, including any form of child slavery or practices that exploit children or expose them to harmful or dangerous conditions. Ecuador is not like Ivory Coast where the rate of kidnappings for child exploitation in cocoa farms is incredible, but, it is not impossible, it can happen here too unless it is always maintained a good culture.
Cacao is a product with globalized prices governed by the New York and London Stock Exchange, bought and sold internationally in the World Market. The market price is determined by a series of factors that include supply and demand, political conflict, natural disasters, speculation, etc. Small cacao producers have no control over the price of cocoa beans and have very little influence with buyers to negotiate the prices of their own crops. This means that, in general, the incomes of cacao producers are linked to fluctuations in the volatile prices of international markets based on many variables that are beyond their control with unscrupulous intermediaries. This reduces the incentive to invest time, energy or money in improving the quality of cocoa. But that’s not all, here in Ecuador the intermediaries, push the farmer to harvest and deliver the cocoa on certain days, paying lower prices than the conventional world market, that makes the farmer, harvest without worrying if the pod is ripe or not, without separating the fungus or the sick cacao, without protecting it from contamination of birds or animals, without fermenting it properly, without separating the qualities, often the farmer receives the same price for Criollo Cacao Arriba Nacional than for GMO and without fermenting it at all nor dry it so the intermediary earns more money than the farmer because of the discount they give to the percentage of moisture in the cocoa, therefore, the quality of conventional industrial cocoa delivered by the country is of very low quality because of the seasons in which beans get mouldy or fungi and all that the multinationals buy, and this is how the quality of life of the farmer goes down, they live without access to education, their business perspective is totally wrong.
What we are doing is raising awareness about international markets, it is to offer quality, acculturate the farmer and empowering them to make things right, to unify the chocolatiers buyers with producers in Ecuador generally ordinary markets pay farmers the same price for all varieties of cocoa, National, CCN51 or Criollo Arriba therefore the incentive is lost by the producers. First the cost of production, the flavour profiles and genetics all we must consider and evaluate each source, paying for the different unique qualities of its kind brings us closer to the goal that the farmer earn decent income for their hard work.
We seek to link the price of cocoa directly for the quality of it. This means that prices receive increases, creating significant financial incentives to make investments and increase the quality of life and productivity. The most important fact is that the farmer can only worry about the harvest and good maintenance of its plants, while we take care of the whole process of cacao and their existential problems. All prices are determined directly between us and our customers, according to quality parameters for each harvest season. Under this model, farmers know how much income to expect from their harvest, which allows us to make financial plans for the future with transparency throughout the distribution chain.
