Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana launched an unprecedented media offensive on Monday (November 30th) against Hershey and Mars, two US multinational chocolate companies, accused of failing to pay the “decent income gap”. A special bonus of $ 400 per tonne to better pay small cocoa producers. According to an intermediary, the behavior of the two US multinational companies could jeopardize the maintenance of this price.
An intermediary who wishes to remain anonymous and a member of a San Pedro cooperative does not hide his fear of the sustainability of the special premium for small producers. He also explains that the order is not as large as expected with the current context.
“We, already as a cooperative, have great difficulty selling our products because when we contact the various exporters, they tell us that the end customers, the customers outside, have not spent a lot of money ordering,” intermediaries say. So that they do not buy does not allow us to reach the price of 1000 CFA francs that we promised the plantations. So it’s really disappointing. We hope that the Council will be able to find a solution with them so that we can solve this problem. ”
Fear of not being able to sell shares
The special premium entered into force on 1 October and enabled a 21% increase in the price paid to growers in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The Ivorian producer must now receive 1000 CFA francs per kilo of beans sold. For this middleman, it will be a puzzle to succeed in respecting the rules introduced by the Café-Cacao Council.
“We have a duty to respect the Council’s rules. But the problem, when we promise 1000 francs for the plantations, we have to find a factory to be able to sell, so that even if we buy we have to wait two weeks, three weeks before we get our money to come back and pay for the planting, he complains . So if this continues, the plantations will have the stock they can not sell. This is our great difficulty. The first purchase we made in October, we were able to respect the price of 1,000 francs because there were still factories that made status, but since the end of October, the beginning of November, it is very complicated to be able to find places to unload ”.
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