'Who Gets What' in the bean to chocolate bar chain

In ESOL, we are now focusing on the Chocolate Industry. For this topic, Ms Briggs divides the class into 5 groups. Each group has different roles; growers of cocoa, buyers of cocoa, producers/growers of other products, chocolate manufacturers and shopkeepers. 

Grower of cocoa: Harvest cocoa when it's in good condition to be harvested and sent to the buyers. Physical Labor -Planting, Farming, Harvesting and Packaging. 

Areas of work - Tropical land or acceptable climate conditions in a land

What do you do:

Keep the plants Healthy- Depending on Rainfall the Cacao will need between 1-2 inches of water per week. Don't let it get soggy. Make sure the plants are healthy/ taking care.

Buyer of cocoa:

• Importing to chocolate makers

• Pay the producers

• Working in a pretty cozy place

• Normal office clothes/delivery clothes

• Promote the materials

• Sell to rich producing countries

• Bring samples of the product

• Test product

• Work at least 42 hours a week

• Look for farms where there are cocoas. 

Producers/growers of other products:

The growers of other products produce and import the other ingredients for the chocolate. Taking care of the ingredients/products is also one of their jobs. They work on a farm, harvest the products and sell the products to the manufacturer and that's how they usually work for 40 hours a week, it's on repeat.

Chocolate Manufacturer:

Manufacturing processes differ slightly due to the different species of cocoa trees, but most factories use similar machines to break down the cocoa beans into cocoa butter. They usually work 40 hours a week and most consumers are in Europe.

Shopkeeper:

• Profit

• Retail               

• Dressed nicely

• The shop they sell them probably has good air conditioning.

• Shopkeepers buy from manufacturers

• Working conditions: depends, if you’re in a poor country selling it or in a rich country.

• In rich countries or the producer countries.

• Sells the product at convenience stores.

• Depends on where the shop is. - Working hours

Our group chose to do the role of buyer of cocoa. To divide the money, at first, each group thought how many percentages we should take from $1.23, other groups took between 20% to 35% but once the total was calculated we exceeded the $1.23. Since the money was too much, we negotiated with other groups, every group decided to subtract a few amounts of money so the overall money can be $1.23 but even though every group takes out a few percentages we still get $1.26 which means we are still over 3 cents.

Once I found out about the true breakdown of shares, it surprised me that the growers only get a small amount of money as they are most likely to work physically and they even have to share the money with the buyers of the cacao.

I conclude that it makes sense to me that chocolate manufacturers are most likely to get 64.5cents as they have to buy the ingredients, pay the labourers and pay the electricity.