Cocoa chain: Exporters

I'm recently back from a quick trip to Guayaquil and Vinces to check out a step in the cocoa chain that I hadn't seen before: exporters. I visited two major exporters- Cofina, which is an Ecuadorian company that buys and exports cocoa from the small farmer association that I've been working with in Vinces, and Transmar, which is a US multinational company.

The folks at Cofina were super nice- I talked to the general manager for a while, and he answered lots of my questions about buying certified cocoa (Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance, and certified Organic). Keep in mind that I dropped by unannounced, as per my general research tradition of inviting myself to places that will be useful for me. I learned a few things that surprised me. First, I was told that Cofina buys from around 300 individual farmers, intermediaries, and farmer associations (usually referred to in Fairtrade literature as "cooperatives" but farmers seem to rarely call their organizations "co-ops"). Of those 300 "clients" that they buy cocoa from, about 80% of them are individual farmers and organizations, and the remaining 20% are intermediaries. Still, the intermediaries provide about 80% of the volume and the individual farmers and associations only provide about 20% of the cocoa in volume.

The green leaf with stars is the organic label in the EU

 I was told that the certifications (or labels, as the general manager referred to them) that are most demanded by foreign clients are organic certifications and UTZ certifications (UTZ certifies environmental and social factors, but does not offer a minimum price nor a set premium like Fairtrade does- Rainforest Alliance works similarly to UTZ). 

Loading cocoa sacks onto the truck

 

Who invited her? Oh right, no one.

After talking to the general manager, another guy took me on a tour of the center. I saw sacks of cocoa being loaded onto a truck to get to the port (from where we were (along a long industrial road) I was told that it takes at least an hour to get to the port of Guayaquil because heavy load trucks have to cut around the city instead of going through), and saw an official looking security guard. When I asked about the guard, I was told that he was there from an anti-narcotics agency, and that it was required for any exporting agency to have the anti-narcotic guy there. While Ecuador doesn't produce as many drugs as its neighboring countries Peru and Colombia do, drugs frequently pass through the country en route to their final destination.

Cocoa drying- can you tell that it's lined up on mounds so that water can drain off?

There isn't much cacao in Ecuador these days because the heavy rains destroyed lots of the crop. I saw cacao laying out to dry, and I asked what happened when it rained in Guayaquil. My guide pointed out that the cocoa is laid out carefully on mounds so that the rain drains to the "valleys" between each line of cocoa. He also pointed out that he can tell the difference between cacao that has been fermented and dried and cacao that has only been dried (fermenting creates a much finer flavor, but it requires a bit of knowledge and also requires the wood boxes necessary for fermentation) by the color.

The different stripes of colors come from different farmers

Finally, he pointed out a long line that he said had obviously come from an intermediary. He could tell because of the different colors along the line, each color indicating cacao from a different farmer.

I also saw where 40% of the cocoa beans that Cofina buys are processed into liquor (not actually alcoholic- it is just cocoa nibs ground down to a liquid state). I asked how long it would take for a farmer's beans to arrive at Cofina, be dried, have their shells husked off, and then be ground into liquor, and I as told that if the beans arrived pretty well dried, the whole process could happen in less than 24 hours- wow!

Sacks of cocoa liquor ready to be shipped out

The cascarilla or the little pieces of the cocoa shells that come off when the nibs are exposed also get sold- apparently it's common to use the shells in fertilizers and composts, and it's also commonly fed to farmed shrimp. In terms of agricultural exports, Ecuador's top exports are bananas, cut flowers, cocoa, and shrimp, so I guess the cocoa goes full circle!

Processing centers- it says they're processing cacao Nacional that is organic

Processing machines with the chutes

Finally, I saw the bodegas or warehouses where the cocoa is stored. I saw one of the processing machines, which sorts the cacao out, hopefully eliminating trash (twigs, cocoa beans stuck together), including a final stage with a magnet to catch any metal bits!

Metal bits captured during sorting

Surprisingly, there were several metal bits! Conventional cocoa sells pretty quickly, but I was told that certified cocoa can wait for up to a year to be sold.

The bodega for organic, RA, and FT cocoa

It's pretty expensive to store certified cocoa- it has to have a separate bodega with AC- because this cocoa is supposed to be of exceptional quality, they have to make sure that no mold grows while it waits, and it can't have any imperfections.

The folks at Transmar were nice too, but security was much tighter and I couldn't take any photos. I learned about some Fairtrade certified cocoa that comes from a co-op but is processed at Transmar to assure for high quality. Although the guy chatting with me couldn't reveal the client's name because of confidentiality issues, I'm pretty sure I know who the client is. Finally, an advantage to reading so much about FT cocoa in the US- I can guess confidential information without being told!