The supply of organic cocoa remains under pressure. In order to be able to continue supplying you with the quantities you need, in recent months we have been proactively looking for new suppliers in Central and West Africa and visiting them. Here we explain the main benefits of diversifying our source countries and introduce our exemplary partner Lizard Earth in Sierra Leone in more detail.

Jan 29, 2025

Natural variations in the harvest, combined with extreme weather events such as heavy rain and periods of drought, mean that the availability of cocoa cannot always be guaranteed. For example, we are unable to fully meet the demand at present with our organic and fair trade cocoa beans from Latin America. Ensuring security of supplies for you is our top priority. So that’s why, in addition to our existing countries of origin , we are now able to offer high-quality organic cocoa from Central and West Africa. We are using this to supplement cocoa from other sources in our organic cocoa powders and cocoa butter.

Diversifying our sources brings many advantages

As well as ensuring long-term availability, expanding our sourcing strategy also brings many other benefits:

Usprungs-Diversifizierung

  • Variations in the harvest can be compensated for

  • We are less dependent on the season or quality of the harvest in one particular country

  • Year-round availability is guaranteed

  • The price risk is spread, reducing volatility

  • We are now able to help African cocoa farmers, as well, to introduce the same long-established “organic/fair trade” model for success that we have been implementing for many years in Latin America, thereby guaranteeing them higher and more stable prices

  • Long-term partnerships strengthen local communities and boost biodiversity

Local visits confirmed our good impression

In December 2024, our cocoa team travelled to various countries in Central and West Africa. Their aim was to get to know the local situation and our new suppliers better. We also wanted to raise certain matters with them. What we saw there confirmed our good impression: our new suppliers are able to meet our high standards for quality, sustainability and social responsibility and are willing to work with us to make further progress.

Kooperative Mubao-Nga
Esco Kivu

Lizard Earth, Sierra Leone

Another purpose of the trip was to visit our existing partner, Lizard Earth in Sierra Leone. Lizard Earth works with smallholders in the Kenema region in eastern Sierra Leone. Cocoa has been grown there for more than 80 years. The soil in this region close to the Gola National Park is ideal for cultivating cocoa. There is no volcanic soil in Kenema, which means cadmium levels are very low.

Lizard Earth was founded in 2019 with help from the “Welthungerhilfe” aid agency. The company was awarded organic certification in 2020. The founder Daniel Scholler has been working in Sierra Leone since 2014 and is very familiar with the local circumstances. Since 2021, PRONATEC has been the main buyer, along with another small chocolate manufacturer, and has been working with this exemplary company to produce high-quality, fairly produced cocoa.

Lizard Earth

  • Lizard Earth, Sierra Leone, region Kenema

  • About 2’700 Smallholders

  • Goal: approx. 50-100 mt cocoa this year (50% organic, the rest «in transition»)

  • 9 jointly organised fermentation and drying centres

  • 45 employees for 6 months (main harvest) at the processing centre and in the communities

  • EUDR-Compliance: EUDR data collection largely completed, to be followed by an evaluation by our team

  • Certifications: EU Bio, NOP

Lizard Earth operates on the basis of communities rather than cooperatives and for that reason is not Fairtrade-certified (being organised in cooperatives is one of the requirements for the Fairtrade label). However, in reality Lizard Earth’s social standards go beyond Fairtrade requirements. The smallholders with whom Lizard Earth works generally don’t live in isolation out on their fields, as is usually the case in West Africa, but in communities. Lizard Earth performs various tasks for these communities, including internal control systems, processing, access to markets, etc. The quality requirements for the farmers who are members of the network are high. The smallholders follow a strict fermentation protocol and are paid for “wet cocoa”. That’s very unusual in this region and brings considerable advantages for the farmers, including receiving their money faster.

Because of the small volumes it handles, Lizard Earth is best suited to single-origin customer projects. Click here to find out more about Lizard Earth and its unusual way of working.

Kakaobohnen

Click here to see our other partners and source countries.