Did you know that ~70% of cacao worldwide is grown on mono-cropped industrial farms in Africa?

Imagine a cacao tree, exposed to the scorching sun…

All by itself, suffering harsh conditions without the benefit of biodiversity…

Cacao is a shade tree, an understory tree. When it is thrust into the full sun for maximum output, this is quite an insane unnatural process that causes the cacao tree to die sooner. 

Furthermore, imagine a cacao tree cultivated solely for profit and quantity. For candy, not quality. For consumption, not healing…

Even worse, imagine this cacao tree possibly being grown with slave/child labor and with no respect for humans or cacao. 

Essentially, that’s what you consume when you eat industrial chocolate candy. Now, how does that taste?

Things can be VERY different.

For example, here’s what it looks like when everyone and everything Thrives—cacao, humans, and the planet!

The Story of Thriving Tanzania

Firefly is built upon direct relationships with our farmers and partners such as our partners Kokoa Kamili in Tanzania.

**Pictured above is the welcome banner that they hung up for us upon our arrival!

As you may have seen in our recent post, Thriving Tanzania is back in stock! 

Kokoa Kamili (“Quality Cacao” in Swahili) operates very differently than the commodity cacao processors in the region. For example, Kokoa Kamili:

• Has a flat organizational structure where people are equals and peers
• Pays wages far above the impoverishing minimum wages of ~$2/day that most agricultural workers receive in Tanzania
• Grows cacao in biodiverse environments
• Engages in ZERO unethical labor practices
• Expertly ferments the cacao on site
• Establishes local quality standards for cacao beans, thereby helping farmers earn higher wages
• Creates growth opportunities for its workers: one worker became the second woman in the entire village to learn how to ride a motorcycle; she needed this skill after being promoted to a regional cacao buyer!

As you may know, cacao is highly energetically absorbent, picking up energy every step of the way from farm to cup. For chocolate makers like us in California, this makes logistics from Africa a challenge. 

However, we maintain the highest integrity possible with Kokoa Kamili to create Thriving Tanzania. Here's how we do it and a few reasons why this cacao is different from industrial chocolate:

• Kokoa Kamili pays extra to use smaller, safer, and more reliable trucks to transport the cacao to port
• They pay extra to have the owner of the trucking company personally ride with our shipments
• They always pay to ship a full truck load (even if it is only partially full), so that other items don’t get loaded onto the truck, like coffee or oil, that could contaminate the cacao. This is VERY important.
• They specially bag the cacao to protect it during transit
• They pay for the best export broker in Dar, so the cacao moves quickly through export and doesn’t languish in a dirty warehouse for months.

Firefly is proud to work with savvy and ethical partners like Kokoa Kamili who help us re-shape the chocolate industry so that everyone can Thrive.

Order Thriving Tanzania