Thriving Tanzania Ceremonial Cacao

Amidst extensive rice and banana crops, certified organic farmers within the biodiverse Kilombero Valley grow cacao for Kokoa Kamili, who takes utmost care to ferment and dry the cacao to exacting standards that offer the best quality on the continent.

The heart of Kokoa Kamili is the headquarters located in Mbingu Village, which translates to “heaven” in Swahili, and is one of the most peaceful and remote places we’ve been. The cacao trees grow in the driest climate we’ve seen, however are thriving due to a high water table that is supported by a very wet rainforest preserve in the nearby mountains. People were extraordinarily welcoming and eager to teach us Swahili - welcome in Swahili is “karibu”. To get here one must travel 24 hours by plane to Dar Es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, and then drive an additional 13 hours of driving across two days, the last four hours only on bumpy dirt roads.

Fortunately the long journey to Mbingu is not without its rewards - our drive took us through Mikumi National Park, and that whole stretch our eyes were glued to the giraffes, monkeys, and gazelles casually moving through the brush. We had never seen so many animals in the wild, and such big ones! We stopped here for a half day safari, which was way more nature connected than the touristy attraction we had expected. Kokoa Kamiili itself is near Udzungwa Mountains National Park, which is home to approximately 2000 elephants and eleven species of primates!

The country of Tanzania was originally created as a German colony, then given to the UK after WW1. In the 1960s Tanzania was granted independence. The country is highly diverse, with a population that is evenly split Muslim and Christian, and about 120 tribes with a largely oral and nomadic history. The government implemented a unique policy that required all Tanzanians to move to a different part of the country from their home village where they grew up. This policy mixed the population, creating a strong national identity and pride to be Tanzanian with a lot of tolerance for differences, rather than the tribal and religious sectionalism that affects so many other countries.

The region is very impoverished, and cacao is having a scalable and impressive social impact even beyond the farms. The post harvest processing facility of Kokoa Kamili is unique in the cacao world as we’ve seen it. They employ 25-30 workers, which in this region with very little opportunity has a massive impact. Only three of the workers had any sort of formal job before, ever in their lives! So you can imagine the huge impact this has for self worth and financial mobility. Typical agricultural work in Tanzania is very hierarchical and cut throat, and the minimum wage is TZ 3750, which is extremely impoverished at less than $2/day. By contrast, the workers at the fermentery have a fun work place with no hierarchy. It’s self evident with the laughter and enjoyment that the team comes to work with and the lively conversation at the shared mid-day meal.

The founders of Kokoa Kamili also regularly re-invest into their staff. When they wanted to promote one of their workers to become a cacao buyer, but she didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle, they taught her in the off season and she got licensed. Now she’s the second woman in her whole village to ride a motor cycle … no doubt inspiring many of the young women growing up here. This is just one example of many similar stories.
Kokoa Kamili adapted the same model of purchasing wet cacao from many small farmers that had been so successful in Belize to Africa. They had to get politically active to make it possible, as the local district government was going to ban wet cacao purchasing, mostly to emulate successful cacao growing regions of the south, even though there was no apparently good explanation for the ban on wet cacao purchasing. Given a year trial Kokoa Kamili managed to overcome the ban and then went on to create a local quality standard, by rejecting (not purchasing) any cacao beans that were rotten, had insect damage, etc. Over the years the farmers came to know what is desired and they only deliver the best cacao to Kokoa Kamili!