As a cocoa grower or exporter, there are many ways in which to maximize your profit from cocoa. These include:

• Ensuring you earn maximum price per kilo by having the best quality cocoa
• Investing in certification
• Reducing wastage (e.g. utilizing leftover nibs, cocoa pods etc.)
• Creating new products from your cocoa beans

Ensuring you earn maximum price per kilo by having the best quality cocoa

There is lots of assistance available for growers looking to improve their cocoa quality. CEMA and the Ministry of Agriculture (MAL) both offer regular grower training.

There is also a series of short training videos in pijin available online: Link here https://phamaplus.com.au/resources/videos/solomon-islands-cocoa-training-series/

Investing in certification

There are lots of types of certifications for cocoa and each of them provides an independent verification to buyers that your product has characteristics that are important to the buyer. Some examples of certification are:

Fairtrade: Fairtrade changes the way trade works through better prices, decent working conditions and a fairer deal for farmers and workers in developing countries. You can learn more here.

Rainforest Alliance: Rainforest Alliance certification helps farmers produce better crops, adapt to climate change, increase their productivity, and reduce costs. These benefits provide companies with a steady and secured supply of certified products. Sourcing Rainforest Alliance Certified products also helps businesses meet consumer expectations and safeguard their brand’s credibility. You can learn more here.

Organic:
There are three ways to sell organic cocoa.

• If you farm organically but don’t have certification, you can get your cocoa tested for pesticide/chemicals etc. in a lab and use this as proof that your cocoa is chemical free
• You can become organic certified though third-party accreditation. There are many companies that offer third party accreditation, including ACO, NASAA, EcoCert etc.
• You can become certified by your peers in a system called Participatory Guarantee System (PGS). You can find out more through PoetCom.

If you are interested in certification, make sure that you have an understanding of the overall costs, and see if it makes sense for your business.

Reducing wastage

Often then may be some waste products when you get your cocoa ready for export. These include cocoa pod husks and cocoa nibs (among others).

Decomposing cocoa husks make a great garden fertiliser and you can sell this to people for them to use.

Cocoa nibs (broken up pieces of the cocoa bean) can be roasted and used in cake and biscuits or other cooking. Cocoa has many health benefits.

Creating new products from your cocoa beans

There are many products that you can make at home to sell at the local market. You can use this cookbook (in pijin) to test out new products and recipes at home. Link here - https://strongimbisnis.com.sb/resources/cocoa.html