"Once prices go up, they rarely come back down - and that's definitely true for cocoa. For a small business where the main material is cocoa, it's a real issue when your core ingredient keeps getting more expensive. We work directly with farmers across Southeast Asia, so even before prices started climbing around mid-2023, we were already paying about two to three times the market rate - and now we're paying even more."
"We're still paying the same higher price to our farmers, even though cocoa prices on financial exchanges have softened in recent months, because yields have dropped due to global warming and disease. The higher cocoa prices have cut into profit margins. We're not profitable every month or year. That has forced us to think differently about how we work: how we innovate, how we become more efficient, and how we stay true to our purpose."
"Before founding Mr. Bucket, I worked in private equity and real estate, where I learned most of my business concepts. About eight years ago, my dad got involved in my uncle's chocolate manufacturing company. I joined the team around 2019 and began learning about chocolate and the entire supply chain. During that time, I had a conversation with a buyer from China that really sparked the idea of Mr. Bucket."
Mr. Bucket Chocolaterie in Singapore is responding to soaring cocoa prices by innovating production and using the whole cacao fruit to boost value and efficiency. The company sources directly from Southeast Asian farmers and pays well above market rates, maintaining higher payments despite softened exchange prices because of falling yields from global warming and disease. Rising input costs have squeezed profit margins and forced a shift toward automation and process improvements. The founder draws on private equity and family manufacturing experience, and the business aims to prove that Asian-made chocolate can rival top European brands.
Read at Business Insider
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