This post is brought to you by GOOD, with support from UPS. We’ve teamed up to bring you the Small Business Collaborative, a series sharing stories about innovative small businesses that are changing business as usual for their communities and beyond.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAD-2YH5s2Y
This post is brought to you by GOOD, with support from UPS. We’ve teamed up to bring you the Small Business Collaborative, a series sharing stories about innovative small businesses that are changing business as usual for their communities and beyond. Learn how UPS is helping small businesses work better and more sustainably here.
While 70 percent of the world’s cocoa beans comes from Africa, only 1 percent of chocolate is made there. Madécasse Chocolate founder Tim McCollum was determined to create a chocolate factory that would source cocoa beans locally but also process them locally, creating industry and sustainable community investment.
When McCollum founded Madécasse, a company specializing in exporting chocolate and vanilla extract, he saw it as more than just a personal money-making endeavor. He knew from his time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar that usually only the poorest would pick cocoa beans, and that by providing skill training to locals, he could unlock the potential for higher wages and better local economy. Since Madecasse’s start, he’s seen an increase in earning potential by threefold for local farmers and workers.
Today, Madécasse chocolatiers and packaging specialists create high quality chocolate in their own community, and McCollum can pay the farmers and producers higher wages, which helps create a stronger local economy. Watch the video above to see how a cocoa bean starts a journey of 8,000 miles from the forests of Madagascar to doorsteps around the globe.
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