Understanding the Differences
As long as the world has been in love with chocolate, there has been a struggle for fairness up and down the cacao supply chain. Cacao Trace and Fairtrade International are both organizations that address inequality in the cocoa industry, but they have different approaches. Fair trade chocolate is chocolate certified by organizations like Fairtrade International, ensuring minimum prices for cacao farmers, while Cacao Trace also traces cocoa sourcing from final product all the way back to its farm of origin.
In this article, we’ll explore the two organizations’ methods, impact and outcomes.
What is Fair Trade?
Fair trade chocolate is certified by organizations like Fairtrade International and Rainforest Alliance. These organizations work diligently to guarantee minimum prices for cacao farmers and also help to fund community investments through premiums on every purchase. Guaranteed pricing for cacao farmers helps them plan and organize their lives and livelihoods around cacao cultivation – even if global cocoa prices fall. It also helps reduce extreme poverty among farmers, fight deforestation and eliminate the need for child labor.
What is Cacao Trace?
Like Fairtrade International, Cacao Trace provides direct financial support in farmers. The differences from Fairtrade International lie in full product traceability and the considerable investments Cacao Trace makes in its cacao farmers and their communities. This is why Bedré has chosen to partner with Cacao Trace – they share the Chickasaw Nation’s tribal values of stewardship, accountability, caring for our community and passing on sustainable traditions to the next generation. For any chocolatier or farmer to become Cacao Trace-certified, a three-year vetting process is required, plus annual, external reverification audits conducted by Control Union.
Problems Facing the Cacao Industry
The cacao industry has struggled with deforestation, inconsistent products, and – most importantly – farmers who live in poverty and rely on forced child labor to cultivate, harvest and process their cacao trees. Bedré Fine Chocolate and Cacao Trace have partnered to combat these problems, with real, measurable changes, as well plus full traceability from bars all the way back to beans.
Farmer Poverty & Forced Child Labor
What are Cacao Trace and Bedré Fine Chocolate Doing?
Financial Support
Cacao Trace addresses cacao farmer poverty with two financial mechanisms: the Quality Premium and the Chocolate Bonus. Since 2014, Cacao Trace has routed $11.81M back into these farmers’ lives in the form of Chocolate Bonuses and Quality Premiums, and Bedré Fine Chocolate has been proud to be part of $1.88M of that!
Quality Premium
The Quality Premium is direct financial support, established by determining local living income reference prices (LIRPs) and ensuring a living income for each farmer. This amounts to approximately two to five months of extra income per year for our cacao farmers!
Chocolate Bonus
In addition to the quality premium, Cacao Trace provides a Chocolate Bonus. This is a bonus of 5¢ per pound of cocoa sold, which goes directly back into the cacao farmers’ communities to fund local education, health and well-being projects, like schools, canteens, toilets, water infrastructure. Since Cacao Trace’s founding in 2014, they have completed 31 school projects and 183 water projects – and the list continues to grow. Bedré has been proud to do our part too, with 4,500 school kits, a maternity ward and 12 solar water wells built in Cote D’Ivoire, plus three classrooms constructed in Papua New Guinea.
Family Support
It’s an uncomfortable truth, but child labor – including forced child labor – has long been a part of cacao-growing communities across West Africa and in other cacao-growing areas of the world. Until now, it has been an unfortunately necessary evil. However, with the financial support and incentives provided by Cacao Trace, child labor has seen a drastic reduction. We work with families to ensure children have educational opportunities as well as the option to learn the family trade, but any forced labor is corrected.
Inconsistent Methods & Products - What are Cacao Trace and Bedré Fine Chocolate Doing?
Training & Monitoring
Cacao Trace farmers are trained and supervised on everything from proper cacao cultivation and harvesting to our optimized fermentation and sun-drying procedures.
Support & Coaching
Cacao Trace professionals work with our cocoa farmers to help diversify their income, increase yields and improve bean quality. This not only benefits final producers like Bedré Fine Chocolate, but improves the lives of farmers and their families.
Traceability
One of Cacao Trace’s major differentiators is full product traceability, from each farm through final product. This helps improve accountability, fairness and consistent products up and down the supply chain.
Deforestation
What are Cacao Trace and Bedré Fine Chocolate Doing?
Agroforestry Promotion
Agroforestry is a method of agriculture and cultivation that works within forests and existing ecosystems – rather than clearcutting and installing a monoculture farm. This sustainable, regenerative approach is also better for cacao trees, which thrive under the canopy of larger trees. By training cacao farmers on agroforestry procedures, Cacao Trace is able to reduce pressure on existing resources, lessen soil erosion and protect young cacao plants. Cacao Trace has also been able to plant an astonishing 1,000,000 trees since their founding in 2014.
Bedré Fine Chocolate’s partnership with Cacao Trace can’t solve every problem right away, but it does improve imbalances in profit-sharing throughout the value chain. Markers of ethical, sustainable chocolate production also help chocolate lovers like you make a positive difference in the lives of our cacao farmers. When you buy Bedré Fine Chocolate products you are supporting the long-term supply of chocolate, while directly helping to improve the lives of our cacao farmers.
What You Can Do
Chocolate is more enjoyable when you know you’re doing your part to support the cacao farmers who made it. Any time you buy chocolate products, be sure to look for a label that means the farmers got their fair share for the hard work they put into the chocolate you love. Whether it’s Rainforest Alliance, Direct Trade, Cacao Trace or Fairtrade International, any certification is better than none at all.
You can also go the extra mile by looking into the chocolatier’s origin information, researching their sustainability practices, and any other sourcing information they have. Unfortunately, a lack of information on sustainability, ethical sourcing and traceability isn’t a good sign.