All about Taza Direct Trade:

 - Why Taza Direct Trade?
 - What is Taza Direct Trade?
 - Why Direct Trade Instead Of Fair Trade?
 - Where Does Taza Source Its Beans?
 - When Was Taza’s Last Visit To The Cooperative?
 - How Does Taza Negotiate Directly With Cooperatives?
 - How Does Taza Determine The Quality Of Cacao Beans?
 - How Does Taza Determine The Price Paid For Cacao Beans?
 - What’s Wrong With The Traditional Model?
 - Where Did We Get The Idea For Direct Trade?
 - Where Can I Learn More

Why Taza Direct Trade?

A: Taza Chocolate was founded with the idea of making great stone ground, organic chocolate while affecting positive change in our community and the communities of our growers. Great chocolate starts with great cacao beans. Taza Direct Trade is the model we developed to source better beans by compensating farmers for growing higher quality cacao, and by ensuring that this compensation is meaningful and significant within the farming community.

What is Taza Direct Trade?

A: Taza Chocolate maintains a Direct Trade relationship with every cacao grower from which we source our beans. The five elements of this relationship are:

• Taza pays a premium above the NYBOT Fair Trade organic price for the cacao beans.*
• Taza pays an additional premium above this price for the highest quality cacao beans.
• Taza purchases beans from farms that are certified organic and make use of methods for sustainable agriculture.
• A Taza employee visits the farm or cooperative at least once a year.
• Taza deals directly with the producing cooperative, and ensures that trade documents are transparent to all parties.

Why Direct Trade Instead Of Fair Trade?

A: We have opted to create our own model for sourcing and buying cacao instead of paying for the marketing rights to use the Fair Trade label for two main reasons. First, we believe that Fair Trade doesn’t do enough for the growers. Fair Trade was initially designed to address imbalances in the commodity marketplace, and curb the exploitation of exporting cooperatives by the importer.

Note that Fair Trade pricing applies specifically to the transaction between the exporter and the importer. Unfortunately, due to the complex supply chain that brings commodity cacao from farm to market, the growers themselves frequently see none of supplementary gains intended by the Fair Trade model. By sidestepping the traditional supply chain and dealing directly with the grower cooperative, we can be sure that the farmers are receiving a fair price for their beans. And by taking the money we would have spent on licensing the Fair Trade logo and using it to pay the growers instead, we can have a greater positive effect on the folks that do the real work.

Where Does Taza Source Its Beans?

A: At the moment, all of our beans are sourced from one small cooperative in the Dominican Republic called La Red Guaconejo. This cooperative is comprised of approximately 135 individual family farms, about 30 of which grow the cacao that meets our quality standards for purchase. La Red grows sustainable cacao that is certified organic, and is located in a nature preserve on the north of the island. The growers bring their beans to a central processing facility for small-batch fermentation, open air drying, packing, and grading.

We are always pursuing additional bean sources, and will apply the same Direct Trade model to any new supplier.

When Was Taza’s Last Visit To The Cooperative? When’s The Next Visit?

A: One of the elements of Taza’s Direct Trade model stipulates that we visit the grower cooperative at least once each year. We believe that our relationship with our food doesn’t begin and end with writing a check. It’s important for us to know our farmers by face and name. We visit the cooperative to inspect quality, to verify that working conditions are safe and humane, and to help make improvements to production infrastructure. We have been to the cooperative in June 2007, May 2008, and May 2009. Our next visit is planned for Spring 2010. In between visits we communicate by phone about once a month. We have also recently visited the sources for our Chiapan beans in Mexico (June 2009) and have sourcing trips planned for Belize (November 2009) and Brazil (early 2010).

How Does Taza Negotiate Directly With The Cooperative?

A: The supply chain that we have created to source beans from our growers is unconventional in the chocolate industry. At the beginning of the year, we will work with the cooperative to plan out a purchasing schedule for the next twelve months. When it comes time to order more beans, we call the cooperative and confirm the number of sacks. These sacks are driven to the airport and shipped directly from the cooperative to Taza. After the beans arrive at Logan International Airport, we pick them up and bring them to the factory. Upon arrival, the first thing to happen is an inspection of bean quality. If the beans meet our strict quality standards, we wire payment on the following business day to the cooperative. No middlemen, no intermediaries, no brokers. Ever.

How Does Taza Determine The Quality Of Cacao Beans?

A: A good deal of work is put in at the farm level to train staff and implement systems to obtain the level of quality we require for our beans. Harvesting, fermenting, and drying procedures must be logged by the processing foreman at the fermentation center or farm; and these procedures must conform to specific predetermined metrics. A written record of this log comes with every single sack of beans for traceability purposes. Once the beans arrive in our facility, they are inspected for quality with cut-tests of random samples and taste tests by our Master Chocolate Maker to determine if the quality delivered meets or exceeds our requirements.

How Does Taza Determine The Price Paid For Cacao Beans?

A: Taza meets with the cooperative once a year to set up a plan for the coming year’s harvest. During this meeting a price is agreed upon that incentivizes the group of farmers appropriately to perform the extra work required for producing high quality beans. This price is always at a premium above the fair trade price for organic certified product, often times a significant one. In addition, the price we quote is FOB La Red, meaning that we pay separately for the time and manpower to pack and truck the beans from the cooperative to the airport.

What’s Wrong With The Traditional Model?

A: Chocolate is not often thought of as an agricultural product. In fact, the most important part of flavor development happens on the farm – the fermentation and drying of the cacao beans. The best quality beans are fermented in small batches and dried slowly over wood in the open air.

But for 99% of cacao growers in the world, the commodity marketplace is the only accessible venue in which to sell their beans. To grow and sell beans as a commodity means producing them in the largest possible yields at the lowest possible cost. The focus on sheer volume inevitably leads to destructive agricultural practices that harm both the environment and bean quality: monocultures, pesticide application, poor fermentation and drying, excessive fossil fuel use, water contamination, and more.

This environmental damage stretches off the farm and into neighboring communities, where the low price of commodity beans means that little money is leftover to pay for things like health care, home improvement, and education. In some places, the price for cacao is so low that the use of child workers and slave labor is the only way to make it “cost effective”.

We want no part of this system. We want to give growers an alternative to producing low quality cacao for unsustainable wages. We want to set an example that food producers across the world can learn from and adapt for themselves. We want to change the world for the better.

Where Did We Get The Idea For Direct Trade?

A: We are grateful to Intelligentsia Coffee and Counter Culture Coffee for pioneering a new way to source raw product. Without their first steps, Taza would not exist as it does today. We are idealistically committed to knowing our growers, learning from them and with them, and collaborating towards the goal of growing better cacao and making life better for everyone involved.

Where Can I Learn More?

A: To learn more about the bulk commodity cacao pricing, click here for current cacao futures prices. For more information about Fair Trade pricing, click here for the certification guidelines outlined by Transfair USA. For more information about Direct Trade, visit the Intelligentsia Coffee Direct Trade FAQ, or the Counter Culture Direct Trade page. Have a question that isn't answered here? Let us know and we'll get right back to you.