Cacao Pricing & Sourcing: Where Does Your Money Actually Go?

I’ve been talking a lot lately about transparency in cacao.

Sourcing. Farmers. Pricing. Marketing. The stories we tell, and the things we conveniently leave out.

And if I’m going to ask the cacao industry to undress a little, Mamamuti needs to be willing to do the same.

So, here goes.

Yes, Mamamuti has a middleman

And I’m very happy to have one.

I’m a small cacao business in New Zealand. I don’t have the capacity to import container loads of cacao myself, so I work with a New Zealand importer and wholesaler.

Our chain is pretty simple:

Cacao growers + producers → NZ importer/wholesaler → Mamamuti → you.

But a short supply chain isn’t necessarily a good supply chain, just as having a middleman doesn’t necessarily make it a bad one.

What matters to me is what happens within it.

I am closely connected to the people producing our cacao. My wholesaler knows them. We communicate. When there are questions about quality, processing, supply or price, we can actually have a conversation.

The producers have a voice in what they are paid.

And my wholesaler does a job I currently cannot do myself.

They manage international freight, importing, customs and clearance, licensing, food-safety requirements and quality control.

That’s valuable.

So I’m happy for them to make money doing it.

The question shouldn’t simply be:

Is there a middleman?

It should be:

What value are they adding, and can you see the chain?

Where is the value being created?

This is probably the most important part of Mamamuti’s sourcing model.

I want more value to be created at origin.

I could import dried cacao seeds into New Zealand, roast them, crack them, winnow them, grind them and process them here.

I don’t want to.

And that is absolutely not a criticism of small bean-to-bar chocolate makers who do exactly that. Taking cacao from seed to finished chocolate is their craft, their skill and their art.

That’s their jam.

It’s just not Mamamuti’s jam.

Many cacao farmers grow cacao primarily as a commodity. They grow, harvest, ferment and dry the seeds, put them into sacks, and then the cacao leaves.

Some may never roast their own cacao, grind it, make chocolate from it or even experience what the cacao they have grown eventually becomes.

That disconnect matters to me.

When I choose a cacao project, I’m interested in producers moving further along that chain themselves.

Better equipment.

Better processing.

More knowledge about flavour and quality.

More skills.

And the ability to turn cacao into higher-value products within their own economies.

Because growing has value.

Fermenting has value.

Drying has value.

Roasting, winnowing and grinding have value.

And there is money attached to every one of those stages.

The more that can happen at origin, the greater the opportunity for knowledge, skills and economic value to stay there.

It’s not the only way to work with cacao.

It’s simply the way I have chosen to.

So what are you actually paying for?

There isn’t one perfect formula across Mamamuti. Every product has different costs and margins depending on how much processing, equipment, skill and labour has gone into it.

But roughly speaking, this is how my retail price works.

Around one third: sourcing + getting the cacao here

Roughly a third of the retail price goes to my wholesaler.

That money helps pay for:

the producers + importing + international freight + customs + clearance + licensing + food safety + quality control + my wholesaler’s margin.

Before the cacao even reaches Mamamuti, a lot has already happened, and a lot of people have already done work that deserves to be paid for.

Then Mamamuti has to exist

The rest of the retail price has to run the business.

Packaging. Labels. Couriers. My office and storeroom rent. Insurance. Website and payment fees. Accounting. Marketing. Design. The people who work with me.

And my wage.

Then, after all of that has been paid:

whatever remains is profit.

That’s my margin.

Not the difference between what I buy the cacao for and what you pay for it.

What remains after the whole business has been paid for.

And the truth about that profit?

Running Mamamuti has not been easy.

Over seven years, I’ve borrowed money from family. I’ve been bailed out when things got tight. I’ve dug into savings.

For long periods, Mamamuti couldn’t properly pay me.

At one point I took a second job baking at a sourdough bakery here in Raglan because I needed the income.

And I did years of markets.

Early starts. Loading the car. Unloading it. Setting up. Sharing the love. Packing everything down. Driving home knackered. Getting up and doing it all again.

And then there are the events.

Promoting them. Planning them. Packing the car, again. Travelling to different towns and cities around New Zealand. Accommodation, petrol, food, venues, stock, time. Setting everything up, sharing cacao with a room full of people, packing it all down and driving home again.

All of that costs money too.

But this part? This is my happy place.

Because the storytelling is where I light up.

It’s one of the reasons I keep doing this.

But it’s also part of the work, and part of the real cost of building a small honest cacao business.

I’m not telling you any of this because I think you should pay for my struggle.

I’m telling you because I don’t want to pretend I’ve got this all sussed.

 I haven’t.

Cash flow can still be tight. I stress about money. And plenty of what Mamamuti earns goes straight back into cacao, stock, people, freight, rent and keeping the business moving.

And after seven years, I also want Mamamuti to be sustainable for me.

And I want Mamamuti to make a profit.

There is nothing dirty about that.

What interests me is who gets to participate in it.

And this is where you come in

Every time you buy cacao or chocolate, you are putting money into a supply chain.

You get to decide which one.

And I think consumers have far more power here than we realise.

We can ask better questions.

Not just:

Is it organic? Is it fair trade? Is it “ceremonial”?

Ask:

Who grew it?
 Where was it processed?
 Who added the value? 
Can you trace it back to the producer?
 Who sits between the producer and me?
 What do they do?
 And where does my money go?

Because beautiful packaging is easy.

Green language is easy.

A photograph of a smiling farmer is easy.

Transparency is harder.

Every purchase is a vote for the kind of cacao industry we’re willing to support.

And if more of us look beyond the sales pitch, ask harder questions and spend our money accordingly, businesses have to respond.

That’s how we start shifting an industry.

Not by finding the one “superior” cacao.

Not through another certification or clever word on a packet.

But by becoming better-informed consumers.

If I’m going to ask that of you, then you should be able to ask it of me too.

That’s why I’ve shown you my chain.

Now ask the next cacao company you buy from: where does my money go?