History
A brief history of when, how, and why we got started.
2019
Philanthropy + Investment
Since late 2012, we have been partnering with God through business to create fair wages in the cocoa value chain.
In June 2019 and again in March 2020, this statement that I believe was from the Lord, has continually reverberated with me: “It will take both philanthropy and investment to down this giant of unfair wages and bonded labor.”
2020
Priorities from Growing Communities
Both of Good King’s origin partners, in Indonesia and Honduras, catastrophically flooded in summer and fall 2020 respectively. As a result, their priorities shifted from export to serving local and national customers.
This was an “a-ha moment.” Why was I continuing to push for exporting finished products to our business if that was not their priority? Especially when local and national sales could be equally profitable and better for the local economy. As we build a long-term relationship, their first concern should be ours as well.
2021
More Profitable than Farming
I searched high and low for philanthropies or non-profits who are investing in cocoa-farming communities’ ability to make finished products. I found many investing in yields and diversification, but not one investing in capacity building to make and sell finished products. The latter is far more profitable than farming. For this reason, we launched Cocoa Future Collaborative as a 501c3 nonprofit in 2021.
Today
The Pioneers we Support
We come alongside Makers and Food Processors in cacao growing countries to transform their farm produce into semi-processed ingredients and finished products for their local, national, and export markets.
We provide low to no-cost support for new product development, identifying target markets, pricing and cost of goods (COGs), branding and packaging, marketing, and food safety.
We firmly believe that the best innovations in cacao and chocolate are about to be unleashed – directly from the farm communities that make cacao and chocolate possible.