"Axel Emmanuel Gbaou has learned how to showcase chocolate. This should become more of a reality in a country that barely benefits from the high prices of its most important raw material. The Swiss Nestlé Group also wants to improve the situation of the country's farmers.
In Blé, a town of a few thousand people in Côte d'Ivoire, there is no sign of the record-breaking quest. A dense canopy of leaves stretches over the ground of one of the cocoa plantations. Individual rays of sunlight penetrate the lush green and illuminate the yellowish fruits on the trunks. The rattling of motorcycles on the nearby rutted clay road is silent. Only the dry leaves rustle on the ground.
Souleymane Ouedraogo would be a wealthy man if he could sell at the prices paid for cocoa futures contracts in trading houses in London and New York. Not long ago, the price fluctuated between between $1,500 and $2,200 per ton. Then, in mid-2023, it all started: a new record almost every day, until briefly reaching $12,000 per ton. "Dramatic," commented market observers. The entire cocoa industry was thrown into disarray. The price has since fallen again, but nowhere near its previous levels.
But the slight Ivorian is standing here, in this grove, 160 kilometers northwest of the economic metropolis of Abidjan. For the visit organized by Nestlé, he has put on a crisp white T-shirt bearing the words "Cocoa Plan Accelerator." This is the name of the program with which the world's largest food manufacturer aims to help farmers earn higher incomes and, in doing so, curb the still widespread practice of child labor.
According to studies, most farming families in the two largest producing countries, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, earn less than the "living income," a measure of a living income, often even less than two dollars a day.
Nearly one million farmers and their families in Côte d'Ivoire make their living from cultivating the plants that the colonial powers once brought to West Africa. This high number reveals that they are predominantly smallholder farmers like Ouedraogo. Their cultivated land is small, and they lack the capital for good equipment, high-quality seeds, modern fertilizers, pesticides, or new seedlings. These are some of the many reasons why they profit so little from cultivating an internationally sought-after product. In addition, they are lagging behind price developments. In previous years, when cocoa prices were lower, they were forced to cut back on inputs that were already underutilized. This contributed to low harvests and the rapid price increase.
It is difficult to profit directly from cocoa prices now, because a newly planted tree takes four to five years to bear fruit.
If you broaden the lens to include the chocolate industry and the international market, farmers' yields shrink to a crumb compared to the billions generated by corporations like Nestlé. The big money is made along the value chain and at the very end of the chain. "Côte d'Ivoire accounts for 40 percent of the cocoa supply on the global market, but producers there receive less than 7 percent of the profits generated internationally from cocoa products," the World Bank wrote in 2019.
Well-known confectionery companies have now responded to these poverty traps as part of their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategies, both to comply with legal requirements and to improve their own image. Nestlé's "Income Accelerator" program currently has 30,000 farmers in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire participating, and the number is expected to rise to 160,000 globally by 2030. In the long term, the Swiss company intends to source beans only from participating farmers. Organizations such as the Rainforest Alliance and the International Cocoa are responsible for the design, organization, and success monitoring of the programs. Initiative is also involved.
Even in his good years, it is difficult to support his family of ten, says Souleymane Ouedraogo, lovingly stroking the bark of a tree. He inherited the fields from his father. He is not yet sure whether he will pass them on to the next generation. He would actually prefer his children to seek other, better-paying jobs, he says. Preferably in the city.
In Côte d'Ivoire, the government sets the farm-gate price for beans, which is a disadvantage for local farmers in times of high world market prices. Currently, the farm-gate price is just over $3,000 per ton, well below record levels, but higher than previous levels. This also covers all costs, including paying the harvest workers and the transporters who transport the beans from the plantations to larger towns. If, in addition, diseases kill off the trees, the tree population grows old. If the weather isn't cooperating, things are getting tight. The weather hasn't been cooperating a lot lately, says Ouedraogo.
But the farmer hasn't had time to complain. He routinely places a saw blade on a long pole high up in the branches. A few movements, and a substantial portion of the treetop collapses to the ground. Many of his colleagues don't dare to prune the plants so severely, he reports. They worry that the trees might produce less fruit the following season or even die. Moreover, pruning an entire plantation is expensive. But his yields have increased noticeably since he started pruning rigorously and Nestlé provides subsidies for pruning crews. In the long term, the farmers should be able to cover the costs themselves.
Pruning, or cutting the trees, is an important part of the "Income Accelerator" under the heading "good agricultural practices." In addition, the program aims to help families develop additional income opportunities beyond cocoa, thereby increasing their disposable income. The company is particularly focused on the farmers' wives. Nestlé pays bonuses of up to €500 per year for participation in the first two years and up to €250 annually thereafter. The money is transferred directly to the farmers via mobile payment methods.
A conscious decision was made to "create incentives for behavioral change in order to achieve long-term positive behavior and sustainable value creation," says Nestlé Germany CEO Alexander von Maillot. Children's school attendance is also rewarded with a bonus, with the Nestlé Group having built several dozen schools in remote areas. The company has earmarked investments of CHF 1.3 billion (almost €1.4 billion) between 2022 and 2030 for the program and other initiatives in the cocoa industry.
The route to Pahia is even more bumpy than to Blé. To the left stretches dense rainforest; to the right, rice fields and settlements with mud buildings alternate. In the center of the small village, a dozen or so women in colorful traditional costumes have gathered in a circle; some come from neighboring Burkina Faso. It's a savings community like those found in many places in Africa, wherever the poor must resort to informal financial services. Each woman takes turns making a small contribution to the collective savings, to the applause of the others. All banknotes end up in a box with multiple security features, hidden in a location known only to a few.
The savings club is well-received, says Guigué Ye, the treasurer. The money isn't just pooled and stored. Anyone in the group with entrepreneurial ideas can borrow money from the box. Some women buy seeds or rice in wholesale quantities for resale in small portions, says Ye. Purchases like chairs for the village pub can also be financed this way. The loans must be repaid with interest after a certain term. At the end of the year, the balance is then divided fairly among everyone. Ye says there's also a lot of interest because the savings community, which is part of the Nestlé program, gives most women the opportunity to access their own money. When asked what the men think about this, some in the group laugh.
Bright Simons has nothing against such programs. But one shouldn't expect too much from them, says the political scientist from Ghana over the phone. Ultimately, companies are only interested in their own supply chains. To combat poverty and create better-paying jobs, one shouldn't focus solely on the price of cocoa. Côte d'Ivoire must evolve from being a mere commodity exporter. "If an Ivorian wants to get into cocoa processing today, their biggest problem is finding beans," says Simons, vice president of the think tank Imani Centre for Policy and Education. "It's absurd: There's no cocoa in the world's largest cocoa-producing country."
During colonial times, cocoa was brought to West Africa for export and for consumers in distant Europe. Not much has changed since then, even though cocoa and coffee helped Côte d'Ivoire prosper economically for a time after independence, and Abidjan earned the reputation of being the "Paris of West Africa." Politics, too, was and remains closely linked to cocoa. The first president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who had a basilica built in his hometown that is larger than St. Peter's Basilica, was a passionate cocoa farmer. Anyone who asks around in Abidjan or the countryside today gets the impression that almost every Ivorian, rich or poor, has a few cocoa trees somewhere. Yet, Simons criticizes, hardly any local industries have developed around cocoa cultivation. Not even the jute sacks for the beans are made in the region.
Not far from Abidjan, on the recreational grounds of an Ivorian company, Axel Emmanuel Gbaou wears an apron made from such a sack. Early in the morning, he's in his element. "It's nice if we export a lot of cocoa beans, but please not all of them," he says, stirring vigorously in a bowl. A dozen or so women have gathered around him in a pavilion. They want to further their education to earn some extra money alongside their jobs. With another spoonful, Gbaou lists the diverse business opportunities: "Cocoa powder, cocoa juice, cocoa butter, ice cream, and, of course, chocolate." He has also experimented with cocoa beer. The white mass in the bowl will later be used to make fragrant soaps, into which the women carve their names.
Gbaou is the most prominent "chocolatier" in Côte d'Ivoire. This is not only due to his unusual career path from banker to chocolate entrepreneur and his wealth of awards. He became widely known for his commitment to cocoa farmers and his calls for a "chocolate rebellion" on social media. The goal is to make money from chocolate not just for the big producers in the global north. And courses like this are intended to contribute to that, even if, in this cozy spot amidst banana trees, no one would be thinking about rebellion. Every now and then, a sleepy scarab beetle drops from the roof framing onto the ground.
"The South produces, the North consumes," Gbaou explains during a coffee break, "some's pleasure is another's misery." It's always been this way. But in the 21st century, one should no longer accept this. He has trained more than 2,000 farmers' wives to process cocoa beans, advancing along the value chain in order to charge higher prices than for raw materials. He himself sources the beans for his chocolate directly from these farms and is part of a cooperative that processes cocoa beans in a variety of ways and markets the finished products. His company, "Le Chocolatier Ivoirien," produces 10,000 bars a month, supplies hotels, restaurants, and airlines, and exports worldwide.
Gbaou, who learned the craft from a friend who is a chef at a five-star hotel, is not the only chocolatier in the country. At Abidjan Airport, the souvenir shop offers a small selection of bars from local producers. In the best hotels and some cafés in the area, In this economic metropolis, chocolate "made in Côte d'Ivoire" is trending, with a high cocoa content and little or no sugar. Awards are given for African chocolates, and the quality of beans is discussed like grape varieties for fine wine. For most Ivorians, however, even the cheaper mass-produced goods from international manufacturers are unaffordable.
"There are more than a million cocoa farmers in Côte d'Ivoire, but only a few have ever bitten into a bar of chocolate," says Gbaou.
He wants to change that, too. He has just started producing an affordable chocolate bar. Perhaps this is the next chapter of a "chocolate rebellion" in the world's largest cocoa-producing country.” [1]
1. Teure Bohnen, arme Bauern. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; Frankfurt. 05 Aug 2025: 16. Von Claudia Bröll
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