How can Peruvian farmers create a chocolate revolution?
Choba Choba is a chocolate brand in which farmers are no longer merely raw material suppliers. Instead, they have a direct stake in the company and benefit from its success.
Today, it is common practice for cacao farmers to sell their produce at very low prices to the chocolate industry. While the expertise of the 6 million small farmers worldwide is poorly rewarded, the industry continues to make huge profits. In reality, most cacao farmers struggle to survive, and the younger generations see no future in this increasingly unprofitable activity.
Joint success
After 10 years of working in the fair trade chocolate industry, Eric Garnier and Christoph Inauen, and 36 organic cacao farmers from the Alto Huayabamba Valley founded Choba Choba – a chocolate brand in which the farmers are no longer merely raw material suppliers. Instead, they have a direct stake in the company and benefit from its success.
Chocolate connection
The Choba Choba farmers are co-owners of the chocolate brand. The company’s business model means that you buy your chocolate straight from the supplier, just like your organic veggies at the local farmer’s market. This not only creates a special and direct connection between their customers and the Choba Choba farming families, but it also gives customers the peace of mind that the money they pay goes directly to the farmers.
Financial empowerment
Choba Choba chocolate has a significant impact on the farming families. From the sales, 5% of the money is allocated to their Revolution Fund. This money is transferred to the communities in direct payouts and shares, which allows the farmers to have an increasingly stronger voice in Choba Choba, and to quickly gain a majority stake in the company.
This story shows how Choba Choba supports Goal 1: No Poverty, specifically Target 1.4: “By 2030, ensure that all men and women, particularly the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership, and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology, and financial services including microfinance.”
About Choba Choba
Choba Choba was founded and is owned by 36 cacao farming families from the Alto Huayabamba Valley, Peru, and two experts from the sustainable chocolate industry, Eric Garnier and Christoph Inauen. Choba-choba is an expression in Quechua that means, ‘I help you, you help me’.
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