Tom's Podcast
Tom's Podcast
48. How Pezoan Became a Chocolate-Producing Village
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October 3, 2023
Interview with Evariste Plegnon. 2005-2008: Evariste and I visited 12 villages.
Interviews with Anna and Katie Nakayama. She raised about $2,000 from her church to buy four dryness meters. Part of the 5,000 Villages idea; solving two problems, weight and dryness. Interview with Katie Nakayama, Anna's sister. Her impressions.
Interview with Bob Peak, an Osage Indian. Changing the idea: building a rice hulling center and a small chocolate room in Pezoan. The anger of Pezoan's chief.
Building the building in Pezoan. Interview with Servando, the manager of the Pezoan facility. Teaching Servando how to make chocolate. Formation of the cooperative. Description of his hopes to become a chocolate-producing facility.
CONCLUSION: there is no reason for the cocoa farmer to remain a victim of the marketplace.
Write to me at twneuhaus@gmail.com
To learn more, visit http://www.projecthopeandfairness.org
Welcome to podcast number forty-eight, how Pezuan became a chocolate producing village. This is Tom Newhouse, who is the president of Project Open Fairness, and this is our forty-eighth podcast. As you probably know, Project Open Fairness now has three small chocolate producing factories in three villages. Today's podcast is about one of those villages, Peswan, in which is found SCAP, which stands for Societe Cooperative Agricole de Pesouin. It's a cooperative that we helped found. We begin the story of our relationship with Pesouin in 2004. It all starts with my meeting Everest Plaignon. In August 2004, I had arranged to visit three Fair Trade Certified Coal Coco cooperatives in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Cameroon. At the time, I was looking into the question of whether forming fair trade certified cooperatives might be a way to combat poverty and the twin evils of child labor and child slavery, both of which were endemic in the three countries I was visiting, and both of which were critical to the financial health of the chocolate industry. The Ivorian cooperative that I wanted to visit was Kavo Kiva, which means let us unite together. To get there, I had to fly to Abidjan-Côtevoire, a city of over two million, and then find transportation to the village of Gonate, located in the heart of the Coco Growing region of western Côte d'Ivoire. While I was waiting for my suitcase to arrive on the belt, a young man, Everice Planon, approached me and asked if he could be of assistance. This began a three-d-day trip and in the longer term a friendship that has lasted 18 years. Yes, yes. And I said, I want to go to Dala. And you oh, I'm from Dala.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes. Yes, you told me from Dallas and the technique we do you have to do in Africa, you know what I'm saying? You explain me everything, you have you came now in Africa, but I recourse to help African cocoa farmers, and because you do um you got a little factory chocolate in California.
SPEAKER_01In the four subsequent years, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, Everest and I visited about a dozen villages. Each trip would start the same. Everest would meet me at the airport in Abidjan, and the next morning we would purchase boots and tools that would we would donate to the dozen or so villages. On our second trip together in 2005, Everest brought me to the two villages where we now have established two of our chocolate plants, Depa and Peswan, located a few minutes outside Isia, a town of over 100,000. We also visited Galibre, where Roger Nyepo was the director of a school for orphaned children. 18 years later, Roger is now the director of our latest chocolate factory located in Ndusi. We established it last June. After I finished the 2005 trip, I raised money for Everest to buy and distribute boots. He purchased several dozen and brought them to some of the villages that we had visited. In 2007, three Californians joined us. We purchased more boots, machetes, and sharpeners, and we also built two outdoor toilets in Depa and Peswan. In 2008, a young Chinese American college student accompanied Everest and me. She was a student in my department, uh, food science and nutrition. We were the next year we were joined by two Japanese Americans, one of whom was uh one of my students. At the time, I was all hot about a new development idea. I called it 5,000 Villages. My idea was that for the price of a single aircraft carrier propeller, $5 million, we could distribute 5,000 scales and 5,000 dryness meters and solve a very big problem, the cheating of cocoa farmers by middlemen who bought and sold the cocoa beans. Anna Nakayama talks about raising the money for the dryness meters.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I uh learned about your um initiative by taking the Kowpalay chocolate class and had never knew that chocolate had um such a terrible side on the production end. And so I was very inspired by you. And so I had a presentation that I think you created, and I gave it to my church. We had an event, and I just spoke about what you had taught me about how um cocoa farmers are not paid a fair wage. There are certain gaps that are making it even harder to um advocate for themselves. And um, and so that inspired people in my church, and so then they donated money to the cause um to raise um to about $2,000, I think maybe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think we bought four dryness meters. Uh and uh so it was about 2,000. My my idea was if we could get a uh a scale and a dryness meter for 5,000 villages, that would do a lot of good. Um, of course, it doesn't really get to the heart of the problem, which is the unfairness of the system, where the um the farmer is just selling beans and getting a very little, uh only five, four to five percent of the price of the retail price of a chocolate bar. Um, so uh whereas the uh the the cocoa ends up in the United States or in Europe and then or in China or wherever, Asia. Um, and then uh they make most of the money in producing the bar and retailing it and all that. Um so I hadn't even gotten to that point. I didn't even know what uh you know the value chain was at that time. So uh I I was just thinking a little bit simpler, just what if we could solve two problems, weight and dryness, so that when the middleman comes into the village that uh that uh the weight is correct and the dryness is correct, and they will make a better living. Uh but I uh I I I didn't have uh it's just it's really hard to do to raise money. And um anyway, that's why I was so impressed that you raised that money.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was so exciting to get the support from my church and um to be able to take the dryness meters to these villages and deliver them ourselves.
SPEAKER_01I asked Katie, Anna's sister, what it was like meeting a stranger at 3 a.m. at LAX to embark on a trip with her sister.
SPEAKER_02I was a student um uh at my college and I had just come back from sitting abroad in South Africa. So then I just kind of hopped over to a different part of Africa.
SPEAKER_01So I came to the airport uh at three in the morning. Um I was late. So did you think I was not going to show up?
SPEAKER_03Uh maybe our parents did.
SPEAKER_01Your parents, yeah. Your parents did all the worrying for you. So your parents dropped you off and said, These are our two progeny. Uh, don't you think you better take care of them? They didn't say that, but I I felt it. I knew it. And uh, you know, so were you worried at all?
SPEAKER_02Um I mean, maybe I was just young and dumb. Um, I mean, I loved to travel and it was a new adventure. Um yeah, I mean, I didn't have the background in the chocolate making course, so I actually had no idea where chocolate really came from. I didn't know it grew in a pod on a tree, to be honest. So um it was a really interesting and fascinating and educational trip just to kind of learn about the process of making chocolate, but then also the inequality behind it. So just eating one of my favorite desserts was just my mind was blown by the how awful things were, how hard things were. Um, and then just the really the need to um, you know, kind of question where is your chocolate made? Um, who makes it, you know, are they taking care of the farmers? Are they doing anything to address the issue? Um yeah, so that really I stopped eating Hershey's chocolate after that for sure. Um, yeah, and then also, you know, educating your friends just a little bit and just kind of showing there's better alternatives out there.
SPEAKER_01Toward the end of 2008, Everest moved with his family to the United States. So two others acted as guides, one being Everest's uncle, and the other a member of the board of Cavokiva. And I continued to visit villages. Seven years of such trips passed, and tired of just doing the same thing and also a little disillusioned with the indifference of people to the issues of fairness, I decided to focus on two villages in Côte d'Ivoire, Depa and Peswan. I asked the chiefs of the villages how I could be of greater service. They said that I should buy them trucks. I told them that that's too expensive and too complicated. They suggested I build a rice hulling unit for each village. Each of the villages submitted a plan. In 2012, I raised the money to build the first rice hulling building in DAPA. The building was completed by summer 2013, and we installed a rice huller by that summer. In 2013, also I brought a chocolate grinder in my suitcase, and by the end of the year, DAPA was milling rice and making chocolate. In 2014, Bob Peak, a Central Coast Californian, came with me on a visit of the villages in three countries Cameroon, Ghana, and Co d'Ivoire. Bob is one-third Osage and Cherokee and speaks both languages. So he thrilled villages in all three countries with the two languages that they had never heard before. And he thrilled me as well. We visited Pesuan, and at that time the chief was mad at me because I had built a rice hauling facility in Depa and the chocolate making room in Depa, but had not done the same for Pezuan. But I assured him we would make good on our promises. Here's Bob Peak. I interviewed him a few weeks ago, giving his impressions about Pezuan.
SPEAKER_00But uh yeah, I remember Pezuan very well. Um it was uh a very interesting experience.
SPEAKER_01Oh, so what what do you remember?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I remember everything. Oh, cool. Um, you know, I've been to, you know, a lot of being um Native American, I've been to a lot of villages and reservations here, and and you know, whether you're here or anywhere in the world, um you there's certain things that you uh receive as a guest when you go into a village or or somewhere new.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I I remember that the first thing they did was they offered us shelter from the heat or whatever we were were in that day. So depending on where you were as far as the shelter goes, um uh, you know, kind of put your place, uh, you know, we're we're what's going on. The the next thing I remember in Pejuan is that that that we were greeted with the loudspeaker, and I thought, wow, this must be a huge village. I mean, the guy's got his bullhorn out here, and he's letting everyone in the world know that we are here. And I got, and you know, it's crazy too because um I don't I speak some Spanish, but I didn't know French. I didn't know I didn't need to know French to know what he was saying. You know what I mean? Yeah, didn't need to know French to know what he was saying.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh. Because while they're not that the languages are similar. Uh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I I I just knew that this guy was hot, whoever was on the the bullhorn. Was it was it the chief? Yeah, it was. I believe it was, it might have been the chief, it might have been someone else.
SPEAKER_01It might have been uh Antoine. Uh Antoine was the chief's spokesman.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, he was sure speaking to that bullhorn.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And um, we got sat and he just kept going on that bullhorn, and I thought, boy, there must be a million people here. And there wasn't anybody. It was just like I knew he was doing that just to be belligerent. And uh, you know, he was mad. It was obvious. I knew he was really mad when every village that we visited, they always one of the first things after they offer you a shelter and a place to sit, they bring you water. No matter where we went, they brought you water. Yeah, and I remember Tom, um, you know, some of the water that we were brought, um, I had to make it look like I was drinking it because I didn't want to offend anyone. It was so, you know, kind of sketchy, the water. Yeah, they they didn't even offer us water at Pejuan, we got nothing. Yeah, yeah, no water. And in a lot of the other villages, so after we were offered the shelter in the water, we were, you know, uh introduced and things, and then we would have a feast. We there was many villages where we ate, yeah, and uh they didn't offer us anything. We had no water, no food. It was like, oh boy, I think these guys just don't like us.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, you know what it was is because um I I had asked the two chiefs of Pezuan and Depa to submit plans for uh a rice hulling facility and a chocolate room. And I remember that, yes. And uh then what uh what happened was I chose Depa, even though their plan wasn't as well thought out. Pezuan, they had obviously put a lot of work into it, but I really liked the chief of Depa. Yeah, yeah, David or the Chief, yes, the chief there. David's the chief's brother. Um so I went with Depa first uh because I felt more comfortable there. But uh then when we in when we went in 2014, you and I, I knew he wasn't going to be happy because he's a pretty feisty guy, and believe it or not, he's still alive. I I think he's probably in his 90s. Uh his wife died. I know that. And I I actually saw him last June and I shook his hand and and he was very happy, you know. So it was uh it was good.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah. And and you know, Tom, I think that in a situation like that where you know your funds are limited and you can only help one village at a time, yeah, someone's gonna be mad. I mean, you just have to start somewhere, and and whoever whoever you don't select is gonna be upset. But I know that you're making progress there in Pejuan, and uh the other village to the north of Depa, what was the name of that?
SPEAKER_01That was Day, uh oh uh that kept as you're going away from Isia, so Isia, then you hit Pejuan and then Depa, and then yeah, there we go. Yeah, and then Peytia. Yeah, right. Is the one where you got mad at the driver because he was spinning his wheels and he shot a bunch of dirt at everybody.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, no, that was you know what he did more than that. He actually turned his swung his front end of his car around and he hit the bench and knocked a bunch of people to the ground. Oh, that's right. Oh god, he was drunker than a skunk. Oh, you think we were? Oh, I know we were. Oh I know he was because we were drinking the palm wine. Oh, and I found out that he was drinking the distilled oh yeah, yeah. And that was really good, too, by the way. Oh, that palm wine I missed.
SPEAKER_01Between 2014 and 2016, we built the building, and of course, the money for all this came from annual fundraisers. Most of the work was supervised by Everest's uncle, Mathieu Rin. In 2019, we installed the rice hauling machine. It was this year, 2019, that Servando started to work with me. Here's how I became involved in the project. My mother contacted Everest and told him that I had a smartphone that I could easily document everything and send the pictures to Everest in New York, who could then forward them to Tom. So it's through helping Everest that I became involved in the project. In 2021, Servando supervised the construction of the chilling room, and we sent him the money to have two work tables built as well as the money for a microwave and two refrigerators that would keep the chocolate bars in fresh condition. Tom also sent how-to videos and PDF files by WhatsApp so that Servando could teach himself how to make chocolate. Thus began a year of learning how to temper, make fudge, mold of chocolate, and candy fruit. Servando proved to be a very able student, all this done from afar. It's all because of you. You know it. I left my life in Abidjan. I quit school and moved back to Peswan, where my mother lived. I was in my third year of studies in Abidjan. I abandoned everything to start this project. If I hadn't met you online, I would never have moved back to Peswan. Life in the country is hard. Food is always in short supply. In 2022, Servando made the SCAP Cooperative a center for chocolate production. First, we formed a cooperative. And I did all the legwork going back and forth between different governmental offices. We continued to work on developing a team that could produce a significant amount of product. Second, I developed new labels for the bars because the ones that Tom had supplied me didn't protect the ends from tearing. And third, I added new flavors, especially the toasted coconut and ginger flavors that have proven to be so popular. I asked Servando about his hopes for the future. Okay, my hopes for the future. It's that the village of Peswan, represented by its cooperative, be independent. Part of being independent is the ability to transform our own cocoa beans. Right now, we are forced to buy from Depa, and so we are not independent. If Depa has no chocolate in stock, we can't do anything. We can't even help our own members. Right now, nobody is buying beans and the farmers are stuck. And we in the cooperative, who are supposed to help our members, cannot help our members. Because what we really do is transform beans into chocolate. But we don't have the machines for that. First, we need to increase the size of our little building. We only have a single room where we do everything office, making candy, chocolate, tempering chocolate, molding, all in one room. If we are going to expand this operation, we need a room for the cracker win owner and a separate room for the mélangeur, and we need to buy a cracker win owner and a mélangeur. We are all hoping that the potential relationship between Project Hope and Fairness and TechnoServe will be beneficial to us. We hope the relationship will be a big success. Those are my hopes for the future. It is important to accentuate the positive. Cervando has accomplished a lot. Just since January of this year, Cervando and his team have produced and sold over 1,400 chocolate bars. And thanks to Priska, his sales rep, they have sold these bars not only locally, but also in big cities such as Daloa and Ganya. That he had brought up in a previous conversation that he could raise capital by buying and selling beans, that this capital could be used to pay the cooperative's taxes, and that by buying and selling beans he would add credibility to the cooperative, so that members of the cooperative, villagers, and people in surrounding communities would see that SCAP, Society Cooperatif de Pesoin, is fulfilling its number one function, that is to help its members become financially solvent.
SPEAKER_05Cervando says, voila the case.
SPEAKER_01Well, since the machines are not here and we cannot make chocolate ourselves, we could behave like a regular cooperative, buying beans from our members at say 925 CFAs per kilo, which is twenty-five CFAs above the going price, cleaning and drying them, and then reselling the beans to a buyer at 950 to 975 CFAs per kilo, depending upon the negotiated price. This is the sort of activity that cooperatives normally engage in. Our clients could include Sokoplan and nearby Depa, which is manufacturing chocolate, as well as SCAF, the third cooperative that is working with Project Hope and Fairness. So in addition to making and selling chocolate bars, we would also buy and sell cocoa beans. The story of how Pezuan became a chocolate producing village ends with this idea. There is no reason for cocoa farmers to be the victims of the marketplace, to be stuck selling their beans for 4% of the retail price of chocolate when they could be more active participants in the value chain, growing, fermenting, drying, grinding, tempering, molding, packaging products for sale locally and throughout the world. As the CEO of Project Open Fairness, it is my fervent hope that we can make the world a better place by turning cocoa farmers into chocolate producers. So I ask you, wouldn't you like to support Servando, who passionately wants to improve his village's economy by manufacturing and selling chocolate? We need to raise another fifty thousand dollars to construct a second building where they can store cocoa beans, manufacture chocolate, and make chocolate bars. Please help Project Open Fairness make SCAP, Societe Corporatif de Pesoin, a cooperative that buys cocoa beans from its members, sells the cocoa beans, manufactures chocolate, and sells chocolate bars. Thanks so much for your interest and support.