Back in the field in Guatemala this week for the first time since November 2019, I have been reflecting on how quickly these two years have passed since the pandemic started. So much has changed, and yet the critical foundation of human relationships remains as strong as ever, maybe even strengthened by the challenging experiences we have all been through over these past two years. Jokes about toilet paper shortages are truly global!
The Uncommon Cacao team and business have changed a lot during this time, yet our commitment to Transparent Trade* has not wavered, and we are excited to continue to grow and innovate with our model in the years to come.
We’re a little late this year, but I am thrilled to finally share with you our 2020 Transparency Report. The report shares updates from our partners who supply us with cacao, including how some of our partners were impacted during the first year of the pandemic, and offers data and stories about the hard work and perseverance of cacao producers during unpredictable times along with flavor profiles and pricing data updated for 2020.
Financial transparency is the backbone of our model, and we are committed to publicly-available transparency on the prices paid across our value chain. I am pleased to report that despite the COVID-19 pandemic and general market volatility, our weighted average farmgate price paid across our farmer network grew by 11% in 2020. Average annual cacao sales for smallholder producers in our network grew by 1% during a year in which many other supply chains saw smallholder farmer income drop. We also started to sell cacao from new suppliers, bringing 536 new farmers into our network!
We increasingly see actors of all sizes committing to more transparent cacao supply chains, which will enable deeper and more meaningful conversations and change in the sector. We look forward to seeing what the future holds, and to continuing to deliver the best tasting, transparently-sourced cacao produced by amazing humans around the world to incredible chocolate makers globally.
Since travel (or lack thereof) has been one of the major challenges of these past years, we wanted to bring some of the warmth of cacao country into your homes and factories. In collaboration with our partners, we made you all a playlist! Here it is on Spotify. Enjoy!
With cheer and chocolate,
Emily (and Anjuli, Benjamin, Mike, and Kira!)
*We define Transparent Trade as verifiable, published pricing for every transaction related to a cacao purchase along the supply chain, including information about who produced it and where.
We believe that the difference between traceability and transparency is published and verifiable data for each and every step in our supply chain.
