YACAO - Cocoa processing and exporting Dominican Republic
Our subsidiary YACAO was founded by PRONATEC with local partners in 1999. Since then, it has been supplying us with aromatic organic and fair trade cocoa beans from the Dominican Republic. Through its partnership with the FUNDOPO smallholder organisation, YACAO has brought over 3,000 smallholders directly into our supply chain.
YACAO at a glance
- Founded in 1999
- Management: Kilian Moser, Werner Schafroth
- Approx. 92 employees (+ 80 seasonal)
- 4 processing centres (Navarrete, El Seibo, Medina and Yamasá)
for buying, fermenting and drying, quality control and export
Partner Profil_YACAO_0524_engl
In the past, smallholder families in the Dominican Republic were barely able to survive on the sale of their conventional cocoa beans. Today, they are paid a fair price for their organic beans. This is due not least to the dedication and commitment of organic pioneers on the ground.
Organic fair trade cocoa beans from the Dominican Republic - a success story
By helping to set up the Fundación Dominicana de Productores Orgánicos (FUNDOPO) in 2002, YACAO laid the foundations for one of the most successful smallholder organisations in the Dominican Republic. Having started with just 84 families, FUNDOPO has grown to have over 3,000 members. By selling their organic fair trade cocoa beans, the smallholder families receive a regular income based on the fair trade minimum price plus organic and fair trade premiums on top.
Traceable organic fair trade cocoa
In the Dominican Republic we mainly produce the fermented Hispaniola trade variety. In order to produce this cocoa, beans are fermented and then dried at our four processing centres. The controlled fermentation ensures the best possible flavour from the beans. Our cocoa is the main ingredient in many speciality chocolate products and, thanks to its mild, balanced flavour profile, is also suitable for making products with a high cocoa content. A traceability system based on barcodes that was introduced in 2019 ensures that the processed batches of beans can always be traced back to the cocoa producers.
Our cocoa beans from the Dominican Republic travel by container ship from the countries of origin to European sea ports. Until recently, that was where their journey by ship ended. The cocoa beans were then transported to their destination by rail or lorry. As of 2023, we have been able to improve the carbon footprint of our cocoa products by transporting most of our beans by ship up the Rhine to Basel in Switzerland. From Basel, they travel just a short distance by lorry to our cocoa processing plant PRONATEC Swiss Cocoa Production near Schaffhausen by the Rhine Falls.
Fairtrade projects 2022
- Improving quality – Warehouses, collection points, education centres
- Supporting members in need – Construction of 6 private houses, renovation work, paying for doctors/medicines for 250 members
- 5 minutes instead of 1 hour – Improving the road for delivering the cocoa
Here’s what YACAO stands for
- Bean-to-bar full traceability
- Biodiversity – cultivation is based on a woodland-like agroforestry system, including different fruit trees and shade trees, with 7% of the land remaining uncultivated (in accordance with Bio Suisse certification requirements)
- No deforestation – existing farmland is used, trees are planted on former meadows, monitoring via Global Forest Watch
- High soil fertility by producing humus in the agroforestry system
- Pesticide-free thanks to organic farming, with the beans inspected on site
- Long-term relationships with the smallholders
- Project reports, portraits and pictures bring the source of the cocoa to life
YACAO – a loyal partner to the cocoa smallholder families
YACAO serves as a loyal partner for the Dominican smallholders to this day. "We pay a fair price to the local farmers, making sure the smallholder families receive their money immediately. We also take care of fermentation, drying, quality control and export of the organic cocoa beans," says Kilian Moser in an interview for our newsletter. (The two managing directors Kilian Moser of YACAO and Wilder Nahui of FUNDOPO tell us in this interview about the opportunities and challenges of their current cooperation).
YACAO operates four processing centres and employs around 80 permanent staff plus an additional 70 seasonal workers during the main harvest season. About 72% of the people working at the YACAO headquarters in Santo Domingo are women.
Here’s how YACAO supports local smallholder families
- A more secure future thanks to YACAO pre-financing and purchasing the entire harvest from FUNDOPO
- Higher incomes thanks to the organic/fair trade premium and fair trade minimum prices – on average 35% above the global market price
- Higher yields because cocoa plantations are refreshed with new cocoa seedlings bought at cost price
- Upskilling by providing advice and training on organic farming
- The whole region benefits from valuable community projects
Growing cocoa sustainably in agroforestry
The cocoa purchased by YACAO is grown in a system called agroforestry. This method of farming – mixed cultivation with other crops and trees for shade – is good for soil fertility, increases resilience to climate change and encourages biodiversity. The cocoa trees are not fertilised and caring for them is confined to pruning the trees and rejuvenating the farm with new plants. Nothing is irrigated apart from FUNDOPO’s tree nurseries. At some of the processing centres, the lighting and office infrastructure is powered by solar energy. Cultivation in agroforestry can help to comply with the requirements of the EU law on deforestation (EU Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products).
Cocoa from the Dominican Republic in our products
The cocoa produced and processed by FUNDOPO and YACAO is available from us as organic fair trade cocoa beans, organic fair trade cocoa mass, organic fair trade cocoa butter and organic fair trade cocoa powder. Some of it goes into our aromatic organic fair trade chocolates and organic fair trade couvertures.