The Kilombelo woman association - Maendeleo

During the handover ceremony at Kilombelo, this group of woman asked us for help for their activity of buying wet cocoa and fermenting and drying them to perfection. Our partner Biolands contracted them as a buying post, helped them with some fermenting equipment and paid a top price for the top quality, they produce.

We were so excited about this way of working that we wanted to set up in as much as possible villages such women groups. This would make a perfect fit with our aim to empower women in this society.  However, the recent decision by the Tanzanian government to force the farmers to sell all their cocoa to a cooperative, who will auction their crops, kills this beautifull project as we do not know how that particular cocoa can be isolated and be bought by Biolands as organic certified with full traceability.

We all hope that after a starting period, all those issues will be tackled and solutions found so that we can keep working with these strong people.

We were received with open arms. All the ladies were beautifully dressed up. They were singing a beautiful song, they made for the occasion, mentioning many times "Fonsi" and Biolands. They told us that they weere trying to sell the last part of their cocoa seedlings they had grown to the cocoa farmers. They also asked them our help to build an own workshop/warehouse. They had already the bricks. We promised them teh rest of the construction materials, but they have to take care of the labor costs, which they agreed.

In our company today were Brian and Ilona from Premier Brands in Canada, myt wife Louisa and my daughter Kim with her husband Bob (now CEO of Kim's Chocolates) and their 2 children Robbe and Bette.


Fons Maex