Choba Choba

Choba Choba is Farmer Owned

Most of the 6 million smallholder cacao farmers worldwide are marginalized, receive low prices for their hard work and suffer from power imbalances in the value chain. Although farmers are a fundamental part of chocolate making, they cannot make a prosperous living out of their work, neither are they incentivized to sustainably grow, harvest, and produce high-quality cacao beans.​ At ClearChox, we try to do things differently. That’s why we love Choba Choba.

In 2015, Choba Choba was founded by two Swiss entrepreneurs and 36 cacao farmers from the Huayabamba valley in Peru. Together, they are determined to prove that there is an alternative to a self-destructive industry. Choba Choba became the first Swiss Chocolate brand co-owned by cacao farmers. This approach fundamentally differs from the traditional cacao supplier-buyer relationship. Too often this relationship translates in divergent interests between parties and significant power imbalances. Choba Choba provides an alternative model which operates as an impact driven ecosystem, fully embracing the interdependence between the farmer cooperative in the Peruvian Amazon (Cooperativa Agraria Cacaotera Choba Choba Ltda.) and the chocolate company in Switzerland (Choba Choba AG). Both entities share common interests and depend on eachother. The Choba Choba chocolate is exclusively produced from cacao grown on the 120 hectares of small agroforestry plantations owned by the members of the cooperative, located on the banks of the river Huayabamba in the communities of Pucallpillo, Santa Rosa, Pizarro, and Bello Horizonte. We know all farmers, because we are the farmers.

The Peruvian cooperative Choba Choba is the largest shareholder of the Swiss company, and the farmers sit on the board of directors. This inclusive way of running the company ensures that the farming families have a strong voice in all decision-making bodies of our company. It is an innovative and awarded model (Ashoka-UBS Social Innovator 2016, SEIF Awards for Social Entrepreneurship 2016, Viva Premios Schmidheiny 2018, Prix Suisse de l’Ethique 2021) delivering real economic, social, and environmental impact on the ground.