Cocoa by sail: The operation fell flat
05/07/2018
Upon arrival of the cocoa beans in the port of Le Havre, we sadly had to refuse the goods…
Last year we had chosen the sail transport company TOWT to import organic and fairtrade cocoa beans from Dominican Republic. Following the consumer interest, we repeated the operation with a high quantity of cocoa beans from Mexico.
Our supplier lacked professional skills on this operation.
Upon arrival of the beans in the port of Le Havre, we learnt that the bean farmer had a suspension of its organic certification from March 22nd, 2018 to March 22nd, 2019. As we have had our organic certification since 2001, it was unthinkable for us to receive such beans.
This news is met with enormous disappointment for our team, our partners, our consumers and all those who have followed this adventure.
This shows the complexity to supply with organic beans and also the international rigour for organic certification for cocoa farmers (in particular with the TRACES system).
However, in the next months, we will propose other nice projects!
Jean-Michel MORTREAU
