You are Gabriel Echavarría-Toro, founder-CEO of Chocolatería Bacatá, a Bogotá bean-to-bar chocolate maker. A large European buyer wants a long-term contract — and proof that your cocoa is sourced ethically. You have six weeks to decide how to build that.
The situation
Chocolatería Bacatá is eighteen years old, €14M in revenue, and sells premium chocolate in Colombia and exports to Europe. Its brand promise is "bean to bar, Colombian origin." Its cocoa comes from roughly 3,400 smallholder families — but Bacatá buys through the standard commodity chain: farmer, to a local buyer, to an exporter, to you. You have never met a grower. You cannot name a single farm.
A German organic-supermarket group has offered a contract that would lift exports by 40% — on the condition that Bacatá can prove no deforestation, no child labour, and a fair price to farmers. At the same time, a Colombian magazine has asked to profile your "single-origin Catatumbo" bar. You do not actually know which farms it comes from. Both pressures point at the same gap: your supply chain has an ethics story you cannot back up.