The High Cost of Certification
Posted in: Opinion
I live in Guatemala, and have a very small company. We make hot chocolate only. ( http://www.junajpu.com/ )
Impossible to get through all the paper work for exporting....much less for organic certification-
hence, we only sell locally. I don't know ANY Cacao farms here that have Organic certification. (Although there may be a co-op or 2 run by ngo's)
As for Fair trade coffee- The farms here that DO have certification meet the standards, sure, but the problem is that they buy a great deal of their export coffee at ridiculously low prices from farms that really are not fair at all.
Whata system.