“Chocolate has become an everyday commodity”, says Philipp Kauffman, founder of Original Beans. Will the rising cacao price, caused by the political crisis in Ivory Coast, revive arguments for systemic a change in cocao trade?

By Jan Marchal, Hilversum

Master chocolatiers Pimm and Marcel van der Donk run a luxury chocolate factory in an upmarket neighbourhood of Amsterdam. The store offers the purest chocolate and its various by-products to customers with a refined taste.

Customers are willing to pay high prices for exclusive brands and quality chocolate: “An 80 gram bar of Porcelana chocolate - very rare and highly appreciated – costs between 8 and 10 euro”, explains Marcel van der Donk. “Our customers do not have second thoughts because our master chocolatiers offer organic, fair trade products.

The real price of chocolate
The ‘chocolate wall of fame’ in the shop features a chocolate bar made with cocao from the Virunga national parc in northern Kivu. This region of the Democratic Republic of Congo is renowned for its gorilla population but also for its ongoing conflict. Original Beans is built around the idea of preservation of nature and corporate responsibility. The brand has a partnership with Congolese cocoa farmers.

In a telephone interview with Philipp Kauffmann, the founder of Original Beans, he claims that the farmers received 30 euro cent for every 70gram chocolate bar sold at 5,20 euro. “They get double the normal market price as they receive ‘fair trade’ and ‘organic’ bonuses as well as development funds.” But the challenge for chocolate factories, he continues, is that the selling price quadruples with transport and transformation costs. This drove factories to pay the lowest prices possible to the farmers”.

An everyday commodity
Chocolate manufacturers, looking to save throughout the sale and production process, compromise on the quality of cacao. “Savings increase, as fermentation and storage of cocoa beans is done by farmers directly after harvest. This results in a bitter cocoa ”, Kauffmann explains.

The Van der Donk master chocolatiers agree that chocolate has become a cheap and everyday commodity: “Chocolate has become a common product. People no longer take the time to savour it. Industrial products are full of additives and sometimes contain only 5 per cent cacao”. Kauffmann is of the same opinion: “Chocolate has become so cheap. The trade is still based on a colonial system”.

Change the system
According to Kauffmann, the system needs to be restructured: “The price doesn’t take into account the difficult working conditions of fieldworkers and the impact on the environment.” He believes it is about time that consumers pay more for chocolate: “Like coffee, western consumers can directly influence the lives of farmers.”

Meanwhile, Pimm van der Donk argues that “a high price doesn’t always guarantee more income for a farmer as there is no way to check the cacao’s origin. However, we know that conflicts in cacao producing countries often lead to the exploitation of desperate workers”.

Fair trade?
The Amsterdam chocolate shop can boast for having a range of fair trade products, but the profits mostly 

go to the industrialised nations where the cacao is processed. Isn’t it time cacao producing countries made their own chocolate to foster economic development? Marcel van der Donk agrees: “It would be nice to see cacao producing countries processing their own beans. The Pacari chocolate, a family enterprise in Ecuador, is unfortunately the only known example of local quality chocolate production”. 

The growing market of high quality organic and fair trade chocolate is increasingly opening to the public. It is now up to the consumer to choose.