With Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on September 20th
Peru Cocoa Alliance and COCOANECT from The Netherlands, partner to facilitate access for traders and world chocolatiers to a fine flavor, traceable and sustainable cocoa from Peruvian origin COCOANECT is a major global trading company whose clients include the world's largest chocolatiers such as Mondelez, Ferrero, NestlĂŠ and Barry Callebaut.
The Peru Cocoa Alliance is a publicprivate initiative supported by USAID that aims to generate greater economic opportunities for producers in the regions of San Martin, HuĂĄnuco and Ucayali, providing them with an alternative to illegal coca planting and by replacing it
with cocoa as an alternative crop. Our goal by September 2016 is to install 28,000 hectares with fine flavor cocoa varieties. To date, the Alliance has worked with over 16,000 farmers to install 21,000 hectares of cocoa, of which it has geo-referenced 13,500. This serves as the basis for a traceability system that identifies the origin of the cocoa beans from the farms and tracks their path all the way to the end consumer as part of a transparent and sustainable supply chain. COCOANECT is a company based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, which focuses on connecting chocolate makers with the farmers and vice versa. Its business model consists of a strategic partnership with suppliers, customers and service providers, providing innovative and customized solutions to foster sustainable cocoa and achieve positive impact at the farmer level. The company has a global network that secures purchases of more than 60,000 tons annually, and projects it will reach 180,000 tons per year in the 5 next years. COCOANECT has started trading fine or flavor cocoa from multiple origins, including Peru. The company’s interests are fully aligned with those of the Peru Cocoa Alliance, as expressed in their MoU.
"As a result of this MoU, more than 16,000 producers who are partnering with the Peru Cocoa Alliance will have a partner in Europe to market their product among the best and largest customers in the world of cocoa and chocolate. Through the Alliance’s monitoring system and virtual platform built with Geotraceability, COCOANECT and its buyers will have all the information necessary to access fine flavor, sustainable and traceable cocoa of Peruvian origin," said Jose Iturrios, director of the Peru Cocoa Alliance. Meanwhile Arjen Thiescheffer, director of COCOANECT, said: "This partnership provides the basis for working jointly with the Peru Cocoa Alliance for the benefit of producers, who they are strategic partners in seeking the best price for the best cocoa. The growing demand in Europe and the world for dark chocolate with high cocoa content requires fine flavor cocoa, which allows us to be optimistic about our ability to secure markets for fine flavor cocoa from Peru cultivated by the Alliance’s partners". The Peru Cocoa Alliance is proud to incorporate COCOANECT as a strategic partner of this public-private initiative
supported by USAID, for the benefit of thousands of small producers who have embraced a new life through licit cocoa production in the Peruvian Amazon.