Cookonauts

“What I am proudest of is how everyone who COOKO has touched has left the encounter asking new questions with new expectations about what is possible and what is needed. We are building a movement of people who are not satisfied with the excuses of the status quo.

The power of the idea has catapulted the voice, the reality of farmers to the highest levels of government and industry.”

“Right now the cocoa industry in Cameroon is characterised by manual operations. The supply chain uses analogue methods throughout.

The fact that COOKO is embedding digitalisation into the supply chain really excites me. COOKO is looking at the business of cocoa from a whole new angle, completely different from what I have seen for the past 13 years.

I can’t wait to see where this takes the industry.”

“The COOKO mission is what’s been missing from my career in the past.

In traditional chocolate companies, responsibility doesn’t start at the farm gate or with people; it starts and ends at company gates. This view is very old fashioned and does not fit the current, complex challenges we have in the world.

We need to take responsibility from the beginning of all value chains. And build in the best possible transparency upfront.

We also need to do this as part of a paradigm shift where we do not eat more chocolate produced at a low price and low quality, but chocolate at a higher quality and higher price and a better outcome for everyone.”

“Cooko is enhancing the quality of the cocao that is produced here in Cameroon. Cooko has a very good chance of expanding. I say this because of the information I received from producers. They see that Cooko can relieve them from the stress that they gone through in the previous years, with cocao quality and labour. It will produce bigger yields and they will be able to retain the size of their farms. They also make it possible to trace the cocao from the farmer to the market.”