What actually matters when choosing ethical cacao.

Before you buy another bag of cacao, read this. Better yet, save it.

If you’re wondering how to choose good cacao, what to look for when buying cacao, whether “ceremonial cacao” is actually better, or how to know where your cacao really comes from, this is the guide I want you to have.

Because buying cacao has become surprisingly complicated.

Ceremonial. Sacred. Premium. Single origin. Direct trade. Regenerative. Ancestral. Organic.

There are a lot of beautiful words being wrapped around cacao right now.

But beautiful words don’t necessarily tell you who grew your cacao. They don’t tell you what the farmer was paid. They don’t tell you how many hands it passed through. They don’t tell you where the real value was added, whether the people growing it have any connection to the finished product, or how much the company selling it actually knows about the people at the beginning of its supply chain.

And a hefty price tag doesn’t answer those questions either.

So let’s drop the fluff for a minute.

If you’re spending good money on cacao, here are the things I think are actually worth looking for.

1. Where does your cacao actually come from?

A country printed on the packet is a start. But dig deeper. What region? What community? What farm, cooperative or producer? Who grew it? Who fermented and dried it? Who bought it from the farmer? Who exported it? Who imported it?

There’s a big difference between knowing your cacao is “from Guatemala” or “from Papua New Guinea” and actually being able to trace the journey it took to reach you.

Traceability shouldn’t just tell us where cacao grew. It should help us understand how it got here.

2. Who grows it, and who controls the crop?

This is a question we don’t ask nearly enough.

Who has rights to the land?

Who owns or controls the cacao crop?

Who decides where it’s sold?

Who negotiates the price?

Who actually receives the money?

Land ownership and traditional land tenure work differently throughout the cacao-growing world, so this isn’t simply about whether a farmer has a title deed.

It’s about agency.

The farmer shouldn’t disappear from the story the moment the cacao leaves the tree.

3. How many hands are between the farmer and you?

A conventional commodity cacao supply chain can involve:

Farmer → local buyer → cooperative or aggregator → exporter → international trader → importer → processor → chocolate manufacturer → distributor → retailer → you.

Not every supply chain looks exactly like that, and many of those people perform necessary jobs.

Middlemen aren’t automatically the enemy.

Opacity is.

Because the longer and less transparent the chain becomes, the harder it is to answer some fairly basic questions:

Who produced this cacao?

What were they paid?

Who added value?

Who took a margin?

At Mamamuti, shortening that distance has always mattered to me.

Our supply chain is deliberately short. There are only a few steps between us and the farmers and communities producing the cacao we buy. Not because “short supply chain” is another sexy phrase to put on a packet. Because connection matters.

4. A $100 bag doesn’t tell you what the farmer was paid.

This is a big one. Expensive cacao isn’t automatically overpriced. There are very legitimate reasons good cacao can cost more: farmer payments, careful fermentation and drying, processing, testing, freight, import costs, packaging, labour and the simple reality that businesses need to make a profit. 

But here’s what a premium retail price does not automatically prove:

That more money reached the farmer.

Research into European chocolate value chains has shown just how unevenly value can be distributed, with farmers receiving a relatively small proportion of the final value compared with brands and retailers. So if farmer livelihoods are being used to justify a premium price, ask how.

If the packet says “direct trade”, ask what direct actually means.

If you’re told your purchase “supports communities”, ask what that relationship actually looks like.

A premium price isn’t proof that a premium went back to the farmer.

5. Here’s the question almost nobody asks: do the farmers know their own cacao?

This is the part that really gets under my skin. I’ve spent time in remote cacao-growing communities. I’ve stood amongst cacao trees with people growing some of the cacao that eventually makes its way to Mamamuti. And I’ve seen the disconnect firsthand. Farmers grow cacao. Harvest the pods. Remove the seeds. Ferment them. Dry them in the sun. Pack them into hessian sacks.

And then?

The cacao leaves.

In some of the communities I’ve visited, people growing cacao had very little connection with what those seeds could eventually become. They knew the tree. The pod. The seed. Fermentation. Drying...But turning those seeds into nibs, cacao tea, cacao paste or chocolate? That knowledge and processing often happened somewhere else. I’ve met cacao growers who were more familiar with multinational chocolate and malt-drink brands than they were with products made directly from their own cacao.

Sit with that for a second.

Imagine growing one of the most desired foods on the planet and barely getting to experience what your own crop can become. That boggles my brain.

6. Paying farmers more matters. But I want us to think bigger.

Of course farmers need better economic outcomes, but I don’t think this conversation ends with the price of a sack of seeds.

I want more cacao-growing communities to have the opportunity to experience their own cacao before people like me export it. I want growers tasting their cacao. Understanding how fermentation changes its flavour. Learning how to turn it into nibs, paste, cacao tea, chocolate and other products if that’s something their communities want to pursue. I want more processing knowledge and equipment at origin. More locally owned cacao businesses. More skilled work. More opportunities to add value locally. And more money circulating within cacao-growing economies.

Because exporting cacao seeds is one way to participate in the cacao economy. Having the knowledge and infrastructure to transform those seeds creates the possibility of participating in much more of it.

That’s the cacao future I want Mamamuti to be part of.

7. We need to get real about modern cacao.

We love romanticising cacao. 

Ancient. Sacred. Ceremonial. Mystical. Spiritual.

And cacao does have an extraordinary cultural history. Those histories deserve respect.

But cacao isn’t living in history. Cacao is living right now. And the reality of the modern cacao industry isn’t nearly as romantic as the language on many packets would have us believe.

Cacao is a major global agricultural commodity. Its supply chains continue to wrestle with serious questions about farmer incomes, labour, climate, crop resilience, land and where economic value ultimately ends up.

The history isn’t particularly comfortable either. Cacao production and trade have been entangled with colonial systems, coercive labour and exploitation. In the Pacific itself, colonial-era cacao plantations in places including Samoa and what is now Vanuatu relied on indentured labour. Academic research continues to examine how some inequalities within modern cacao supply chains connect to those colonial structures.

So while consumers in wealthy countries debate which cacao is the most “sacred” or “ceremonial”, there’s another conversation I think deserves considerably more attention.

How do we make sure cacao has a future?

8. The people growing cacao can’t just be the backdrop to our beautiful story.

This is where the whole thing comes together for me. I don’t want cacao-growing communities reduced to a photograph of a smiling farmer on the back of an expensive packet. I don’t want their culture used to make somebody else’s product feel more exotic. And I don’t want Mamamuti participating blindly in a system where we buy the raw material, ship it away, add the value somewhere else and congratulate ourselves because we know the farmer’s name.

A short supply chain is important. Transparency is important. Better farmer incomes are important, but they’re not the finish line.

Who holds the knowledge? Who holds the power? Who gets to transform the cacao? Who gets to build businesses from it? And who ultimately captures the value?

Those questions matter too.

9. What has actually happened to the cacao in your bag?

Now we’re back to you - the person standing there deciding which cacao to buy. Ask how it was processed. Cacao doesn’t come off a tree looking like a block of paste.

Harvesting, fermentation and drying happen first, and subsequent processing can include roasting, winnowing and grinding. These stages matter enormously to flavour and quality.

Fermentation in particular isn’t some incidental step. It’s one of the places where the flavour potential of chocolate begins to develop.

A cacao company should understand what happened to its cacao before it reached them.

Ask.

10. Has it been tested?

Forget “pure energy” for a minute. Show me the paperwork.

Cacao is food.

Companies selling it should understand the food-safety requirements relevant to their products and markets.

Ask about testing.

Ask about contaminants such as cadmium and lead.

Ask whether results are available or whether the company can explain its testing programme.

A beautiful origin story isn’t a laboratory report.

11. What’s actually in the bag?

Read the ingredients.

Cacao paste. Powder. Butter. Nibs. Buttons. Blends.

They’re different products.

If cacao butter, vanilla, spices, sweeteners or anything else has been added, that isn’t inherently good or bad.

Hell, sometimes it makes something absolutely bloody delicious.

Just know what you’re buying.

12. And for goodness’ sake, does it taste good?

Somewhere along the way, cacao became so wrapped up in wellness and spirituality that I think we’ve occasionally forgotten something rather fundamental.

Cacao is food.

Extraordinary food.

Where it’s grown, its genetics, fermentation, drying, roasting and processing can all influence what you eventually taste.

So taste it.

Explore it.

Get curious.

Find out what you actually like.

You don’t have to convince yourself that bitter brown sludge is superior cacao because somebody put the word “ceremonial” on the packet.

So before you buy your next bag of cacao, look behind it. Don’t just read the adjectives on the front.

Ask:

Where was it grown? Who grew it? Who controls the crop? How was it processed? How many hands did it pass through? What were the farmers paid? How much does this company actually know about its supply chain? Has it been tested? What am I actually paying for?

And perhaps my favourite question of all:

Do the people who grew this cacao know just how bloody delicious it is?

Because I don’t just want farmers growing extraordinary cacao for us.

I want them experiencing it. I want their communities transforming it. I want more opportunities for them to create businesses from it. I want their children to see possibility in cacao rather than simply another commodity that disappears from their community in a sack. 

The story of cacao today isn’t only mystical or spiritual. It’s agricultural. It’s economic. It’s environmental. It’s cultural. It’s human.

And right now, cacao needs our attention.

Not another beautiful adjective on the front of a $100 bag.

Good cacao doesn’t need a mysterious story.

It needs an honest one.

Drop the fluff.

Call it what it is.