With its ‘Bite to Fight’ range of chocolates, Oxfam Fair Trade aims to reduce the gap that all too often still exists between cocoa farmers’ real income and a fair and decent income.
Launched at the end of 2018, the Oxfam ‘Bite to Fight’ chocolate range is mainly made up of different types of bars. A classic assortment, but one that stands out due to its goal – an unusual one in the sector – of enabling cocoa growers to earn a decent income for the fruits of their labour. “If you really take this challenge seriously, it means you have to review your company’s business model and rebalance risks and rewards throughout the value chain,” explains Bart Van Besien, cocoa expert at Oxfam Belgium, who points out that cocoa farmers face enormous risks in their work, including production losses, highly volatile prices and climate change. “A company also runs risks, but at levels that are absolutely not comparable,” he stresses.
For its ‘Bite to Fight’ range, Oxfam Fair Trade has chosen not only to source Fairtrade-labelled cocoa, but also to add its own premium. The Fairtrade minimum price is set at 2,206 euros per tonne of cocoa beans. An additional fixed Fairtrade premium of 221 euros is also paid to producers. However, the producers do not receive all of the above-mentioned amounts, as various fees and taxes still have to be taken into account.
In an attempt to bridge the gap between real remuneration for cocoa farmers and a living wage, Oxfam Fair Trade adds a “living income premium”, a sort of “Bite to Fight” bonus. For 2024, this should be around 836 euros per tonne of cocoa beans, making a total of around 52,000 euros. These amounts are the result of a skilful calculation that combines percentages of cocoa contained in products and sales forecasts. In other words, if Oxfam Fair Trade sells more chocolate bars than expected in the coming year, the premiums will be higher.
An ‘experimental’ project
Bart Van Besien admits, however, that the current system is not perfect. “One of the main reasons for this imperfection is that we have tried to play this game using Oxfam’s current cocoa purchasing model.” Contrary to what the organisation does for other products, Oxfam Fair Trade does not source its cocoa directly, but via the Belgian bakery and chocolate company Puratos, which in turn obtains supplies from an Ivorian cooperative chosen by Oxfam. “You have to realise that everything in our project is experimental. We have a starting point and a destination, but we don’t yet know exactly which path we are going to take.”
The ‘Bite to Fight’ programme currently has 100 cocoa farmers. Ten of them have already crossed the living wage threshold. “We have not yet been able to carry out an in-depth analysis to determine why these ten growers have achieved a living wage and the others have not. It has a lot to do with the possibility of diversifying sources of income, the size of the farms, and so on,” says Bart Van Besien. “This issue raises many questions as to how far a company’s responsibility extends when it buys cocoa. Of course, we have to pay a decent price, but should we also encourage crop diversification? Is it sustainable to push people to produce cocoa all their lives? And so on.
In the context of ‘Bite to Fight’, Oxfam Fair Trade has chosen to support producers integrally, i.e. by supporting them in monitoring their income, implementing good agricultural practices, diversifying their income sources, promoting the economic empowerment of women, etc. The recipe for achieving a living wage is complex. But paying a higher price for cocoa has to be one of the ingredients in any case.”
“Public buyers have an even greater responsibility”
Despite the current “absurdity” of the chocolate industry, which pays cocoa producers an average of just 6% of the final price, Bart Van Besien nevertheless believes that making the sector fair and sustainable is an entirely achievable goal. “Everyone now understands that every company has a responsibility to protect human rights throughout the supply chain, even if this notion is not yet necessarily reflected in practice. For example, even though the entire Belgian sector is committed to a decent income for growers as part of the Beyond Chocolate initiative, there are still too few companies making a real commercial commitment in this direction. But things are changing, initiatives are beginning to emerge and legislation is also progressing, whether in terms of deforestation or due diligence”.
The cocoa expert also points out that consumers have a role to play in this issue as well, at the very least by becoming informed and then buying responsibly according to their means. “In this respect, public buyers have an even greater responsibility than private consumers, since they not only have more opportunity to compare offers and question their suppliers about cocoa farmers’ income, they also have the financial means to buy accordingly.”
