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At first I thought, No they are not getting it that cheap, they are buying 2nd or 3rd hand. But then I remembered all the pictures on the web of David Wolfe and Shazzie etc standing proudly next to the farmer they are buying direct from. No wonder David’s having “The Best Day Ever!”
While I don’t doubt they are making good money, the associated costs of managing, moving, packaging, meeting government regulations, business administration, etc. really adds up quickly. If you havn’t been in that type of business, you have no idea how all these expenses whittle your profit down.
Ultimately, it is those of us that consume the prodct who determine what the profit will be by what we are willing to pay for it.
I guess we’ll know the truth when he trades his hemp poncho in for bamboo! There is some cost in removing the bean/nut, grinding and packaging. I’m not ready to go there and get the cacao myself just yet, but that IS a remarkable profit margin.
I agree that it seems as though they’re making a killing, but as Dain says, there is more involved than just the cost of the product. How much would it cost you to go get it (if you could)?
I guess I have to remember that these are companies after all, “for profit” companies that is. There are not charities or Social Enterprises like I’d like to imagine. No matter how much is said about the “raw chocolate revoultion” I have to remember that they are companies with a product to sell.
As far as other costs, I’ve been in business for 20 years including purchasing, manufacturing, wholesale distribution and retail. I had already considered the other costs and I’ll just say this…
Even if importing is another
Then you have equipment costs, location fees, utility costs, employee payroll, packaging, advertising, delivery costs, license fees, health dept.fees, waste/loss, supplies….
i’d rather someone selling me healthy fare make a huge profit – maybe that’ll get more profiteers to encourage healthy existences. get them all on the bandwagon and the prices go down.
msrawdiva, problem is that nothing about cacao is healthy. It’s full of toxins.
i’m eating some of david’s cacao nibs as i type this … my contribution to the discussion. carry on.
i’m a little disappointed by people’s reactions. but i think it just goes to show that people get very attached to their food.
the reasons people would be open/not open to this information seems to me to have more to do with whether or not they like chocolate. that isn’t very objective. and it reminds me of people who tell me they could never give up meat even though i’ve told them how polluting it is to their bodies and to the earth.
msrawdiva—‘YOUR’ exploitation for ‘MY’ good is a very sad equation.
Isn’t it about free enterprise? I was under the impression that I (or anyone else) can grow, make, sell anything I want (as long as it’s not an illegal product or service) and charge whatever I want, and people choose whether they buy it or not. There are people who handweave baskets and sell them as art, and the price is giving them a HUGE profit as far as materials and time involved – those who see value in it buy it, and others think no way am I paying that much for a basket (hundreds or thousands of dollars for one unique basket. The same is true for other types of artists and entrepreneurs. No one goes around claiming those artists are bad people or are trying to rip us off:)
I’d have to agree with angie about the free enterprise notion. If the margins are that huge, I imagine an entrepreneureal person could come into the market and offer the product at a lower cost. Zoe, perhaps you’ve hit upon an untapped business opportunity – go for it!
As for being attached to food and cacao being toxic – I am attached to my health. I am fine without the taste of chocolate – I ate raw for quite a while before raw chocolate was even on the market. Sometimes I eat it (when my body needs it, and then it doesn’t really matter the taste). Sometimes I don’t eat it for weeks or months at a time (when my body doesn’t need or want it). I know the difference between the ‘addicted’ feeling I have with heated chocolate (I ate some I thought was raw but wasn’t and remembered why I gave up chocolate when going raw) and the ‘eat it only when my body needs it’ feeling I get with raw cacao. I have read somewhere that every food has toxins in it, including greens, and that Victoria Boutenko recommends varying the greens so there is no build-up of any one toxin. I have not been able to stand the thought of eating spinach for months! I listen to that. Does that mean we should never eat anything with a toxin in it? No – we just need to learn to heed our bodies’ needs/wants, and we will be happier, healthier people – peace, blessings, and joy :)
SocaL-when you say it’s full of toxins, where do you get your information? Never mind…i checked a post from last year where you gave a link—thank you. I’m almost out so now I have seen some raw carob. I’ll switch.