Costa Rican-based Nahua Cacao has joined Business Call to Action (BCtA) with the intent to improve the quality of life of at least 200 low-income cocoa farming families.
Launched at the United Nations in 2008, Business Call to Action (BCtA) aims to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by challenging companies to develop inclusive business models that engage people at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP) – people with less than US$10 per day in purchasing power in 2015 US dollars – as consumers, producers, suppliers, distributors of goods and services and employees.
Nahua Cacao wants to help small farming families in rural Costa Rica by increasing their knowledge of improved sustainable agricultural practices by 2021, and thereby earn more from their crop.
Nahua is a leading quality producer in the region, supplying some leading chocolatiers and cacao buyers around the world. Nahua’s mission is to produce cacao and fine chocolates, of select single-origin quality, that has a positive impact on people and the planet.
The company sees the business as a social enterprise and is careful to track various social, environmental and economic indicators (KPI’s). The company runs workshops to educate smallholder farms on how to make their operations more efficient using sustainable techniques.
In the video above, they explain that they will purchase the cocoa at a 60% premium, which has helped over 300 local families and simultaneously contributed towards a sustainable crop in Costa Rica.
Nahua’s Cacao Renovation Program provides smallholder farming families with the knowledge and the tools they need to renew their abandoned or underproductive cacao forests.
The company exports 95% of what they process to markets around the world, including the US, Japan and China. The remaining 5% they turn into chocolate bars which they sell locally. The business was founded in 2011.
