"When you think of cacao, what do you imagine?" asks Monica Meschini, a chocolate taster for over thirty years, and founder of the International Institute of Chocolate and Cacao Tasting, and the International Chocolate Awards. "Endless plantations that exploit and misuse the soil, and not good cacao that evolves into good chocolate. But actually, there are more and more small producers who get together and organise themselves into cooperatives, and from there we need to start to create sustainability from within this supply chain."

Small producers, and also a lot of female producers, who are slowly laying the foundations for a significant change that will affect the whole process. Because there are a great many women taking part, at various levels and in various areas, in this supply chain that is still so little-known and little-defended. And along this productive route, we consumers also have a role to play, as in many cases we still have only a superficial understanding of the topic of cacao and chocolate.

First of all, genetics. "The cacao fruit has enormous genetic variation: just consider that fruits picked from the same tree can be genetically different."
And then: "There is a lot of confusion around cacao cultivation, for example when we speak about Criollo, we mean a special variety that in its pure form represents only 2% of chocolate worldwide; often this term is used inappropriately as a synonym for 'native'."

At this point in the conversation, maybe we need a little digression to explain the various steps that transform cacao into chocolate.
After being picked, the fruits are left to rest for a few days, so that the fermentation process starts and the flesh separates from the seeds. In this phase, the precursors of the aromas are already forming. The seeds are then laid out, mixed, and left to dry to become cocoa beans. Once they have been cleaned, roasted and squeezed, they become either cocoa powder or cocoa butter, which, mixed in various different recipes, transforms into chocolate. The moment of harvest and the roasting are the two most important phases in terms of aroma, as it is there that the flavour of the chocolate is formed.

This is why Meschini has always maintained how important it is to promote the culture of cacao processing right from the fields, and how fundamental the farmers' role is in forming the quality of the product. "We need to teach farmers in the field, and start to pay for the product not only based on weight, but also based on its quality. This is how they will be encouraged to work with more understanding."

"Today, the countries producing the most cacao are Latin America and Asia, especially Vietnam, Thailand and India. But the role and type of farmer changes at different latitudes. In Latin America, for example, they are mostly small producers who group together in cooperatives: they work a lot but barely manage to survive, as the pay for the work is very low; in Africa, in 90% of cases farmers working with cacao know nothing about what they are doing, the harvests are not directed, and workers are paid very little, by weight; in Asia, the situation is different, and a farmer in Taiwan can even earn up to 30 dollars per hour."

This is where the concept of supply chain sustainability comes into play, which for Meschini means paying attention to an ethical approach on two levels: paying farmers for the quality of the cacao they grow, and giving visibility and protection to women.

In this regard, on the occasion of the 2022 edition of SIGEP (the International Trade Show of Artisan Gelato, Pastry, Bakery and Coffee), Meschini presented Women for Cacao and Chocolate: "It is a movement that comes out of the love and pride of those who live and work in this sector, on every continent, and especially in those areas where cacao is grown, in the fields where the women work as much as the men, while still taking care of everyday household and family responsibilities, as wives and mothers." 

The goal of the movement is to organise international events, photography exhibitions and special talks, mixing languages, cultures, production methods and different traditions, implementing the resilience and multi-tasking abilities shared by all women.

A tour of geography, but above all, culture, to create a change of value: "If we want to do equi-trade and not fair-trade, without resorting to charity, we need to promote the first link in the chain, because without it, nothing would exist. And we need to connect it with the other links in the same chocolate chain, with sensitivity, empathy, strength, flexibility and commitment - all feminine qualities!"