Putz

Some two years ago Cargill, Heinz en Albert Heijn sat together about how on earth to make the cocoa supply chain more sustainable. Hunderds of thousands of farmers were out there in the field. In West Africa, in Asia en who knows where. Quality mostly lousy, social conditions same thing. Bringing cocoa to a collection station was mostly a matter of bringing in as much weight as possible. Throw in some rocks here and there, not at the top of the bag. Child labor? Who knows. Slave labor? Who knows. The task at hand was so immense. That is when I first started participating tha meeting. Cargill was thinking of telling Oxfam what great things they were doing in their cocoa supply chain. And then what, did we make a difference? No, I suggested, let's talk to Utz Certified. These guys know about sustainable coffee certification, coffee is a bean, cocoa is a bean. That was my simple reasoning. Wow, did I know you could raise so many objections comparing beans and beans! But in the end it worked. Today in Dutch newspaper a big article about what Cargill and Utz did. And that fills these eyes with tears. Gratitude, that some things work, more and more things work...