Marketing & Communications Supply Chain Consumer Behavior Change

Acumen Invites Chocolate Lovers to Make a ‘Cocoamitment’ This Valentine’s Day

The campaign promotes chocolate brands that exemplify transparency and fairness through practices including direct trade, farmer ownership and paying price premiums to farmers.

Published 5 months ago | About a 4 minute read

Image: Fruition Chocolate Works

Global nonprofit impact investor Acumen has launched a Valentine’s Day campaign urging chocolate lovers to “Make a #Cocoamitment” by choosing chocolate brands that support fair wages for cocoa farmers.

The Cocoamitment campaign invites consumers to think twice when choosing their chocolate and shares tips on terms for buyers to keep in mind — such as “Bean-to-bar,” “Tree-to-bar,” “Farmer-owned,” “Direct trade,” “Single origin” or “Price premium” — that identify ethically sourced chocolate.

While the global chocolate industry is valued at nearly $120 billion, many cacao farmers live in extreme poverty in climate-vulnerable areas — typically earning less than $2.15 per day. Not only is that drastically below a living wage, it leaves them unable to adapt to climate-fueled drought, pests, crop diseases, increased temperatures and extreme weather events that increasingly threaten cacao crop yields.

With worldwide chocolate consumption projected to reach 7.5 million tons in 2024 — an average of almost two pounds per person for the year — the citizens of the world are arguably invested in the long-term availability of the sweet treat.

“Cocoa farmer pay is inextricably linked to the cocoa crisis,” said Alexandra Gordon, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at Acumen — founded in 2001 by best-selling author Jacqueline Novogratz on the idea that business, when cultivated with moral imagination, can break the cycle of poverty. “Valentine’s Day is a key moment for the chocolate industry, so we want to encourage consumers to make more conscious choices. This campaign highlights some of the cocoa companies we invest in that are creating a fairer future for farmers.”

Acumen’s Cocoamitment builds on campaigns including Fairtrade America’s annual murals campaign, which celebrates the growers behind ethical chocolate and tea brands to remind the public to support brands that pay farmers fairly, and Be Slavery Free’s annual Chocolate Scorecard — which evaluates chocolate makers on social and environmental criteria, and provides valuable information for consumers to make ethical purchasing decisions. The future of chocolate depends on supply chain changes that ensure smallholder cocoa farmers earn decent wages and can afford to adapt to climate change — which is wreaking increasing havoc on cocoa production around the world.

With chocolate sales expected to skyrocket this February — and again for Easter in April — Acumen’s Cocoamitment campaign aims to shine a spotlight on the farmers that grow the cacao that make up our chocolate bars and the ethical companies ensuring farmers are paid fairly.

For example, Beyond Good — an investee of Acumen’s Resilient Agriculture Fund (ARAF) — has a direct-sourcing model that removes middlemen and allows farmers to earn a thriving wage through sustainable farming practices. The over 900 farmers Beyond Good partners with in Madagascar and Uganda earn five to six times more than if they sold their cocoa through conventional trading.

Other brands featured in the campaign include:

Cacao Hunters — another ARAF investee — is the first Colombian company to locally source and produce premium chocolate in the region. By working with farmer cooperatives and providing technical assistance and environmental training, Cacao Hunters enables cacao farmers to improve the quality and productivity of their yields.
Buyers of Acumen investee Uncommon Cacao — an initiative that connects smallholder organic cacao farmers to specialty chocolate makers through direct, transparent relationships — including Ethereal Confections, Fruition Chocolate Works, Markham & Fitz and Spinnaker Chocolate.

“We believe consumers hold a lot of power when it comes to valuing traceability and quality in cocoa and chocolate—just as they did with coffee,” said Cacao Hunters co-founder Carlos Velasco. “While chocolate lags behind, consumer demand for quality can drive the industry forward.”

For more information about the Cocoamitment campaign, including a list of participating brands and where to buy them, visit thework.acumen.org/cocoamitment.