THE HAITIAN COCOA MARKET CHAIN :: GEO WIENER S.A.

Geo Wiener is a cocoa exporter with operations in Dame-Marie in the Grand’Anse region of
Haiti.

The company has been purchasing and exporting cocoa for over a century.

GEO Wiener relies on speculators to buy unfermented cocoa in the Northern and Grand’Anse regions of Haiti.

In the South, the product is purchased from the farmers and transported to the
company’s processing and drying facilities in Dame-Marie.

The PPA will increase the company’s export while reducing its effort since it will purchase all 497,000lbs of already-dried cocoa from CAUD.

Ongoing Operations

Geo Wiener SA is based in Port-au-Prince with a buying center in Dame-Marie
(Grand’Anse).

To supply its Port-au-Prince plant, GWSA buys directly from the

North. Since the cocoa purchased from the North is humid, it must go to the following process:

Meanwhile in the South, the cocoa is bought; that’s where the commodity is processed before export.

In the Dame-Marie region GWSA has a staff of about 30 people working in its buying center.

On a daily basis GWSA has a truck going around the different buying stations in the area in order to collect the cocoa that the farmers have sold for the day to the speculators.

This cocoa has to be brought back to the Dame Marie center to be dried before shipping to PAP. GWSA has a 2 container drying capacity over there.

This drying capacity is totally covered with plastic in order to cope with the heavy rain in the region.

Once completely dried, the cocoa is put in bags and trucked to either Anse d’Hainault or Jeremie (depending on the availability) and then put on
a boat (without insurance) to PAP.

This lack of insurance is an issue, under which the company has been operating for decades.

The cocoa is then trucked to GWSA central in PAP to be sorted, processed and finally put in containers for export.

Location

GWSA owns a property of about one hectare in Dame-Marie on which they built their buying center.

It contains 5 covered drying surfaces of about 140m2 each; another uncovered drying surface of 200m2 and 40 drying tables of about 50m2 each which can be covered in no time in case of rain.

Dame-Marie is the center of the cocoa region in the Grand’Anse.

GWSA has a storing facility which can hold over 5000 (60kg) bags in case there are no boats available for a long period.

The company also owns several pickups and one truck to transport the cocoa.

This ideal location represents one of the reasons a Public Private Alliance between MarChE and CAUD will work well.

The company has strong ties in Grand’Anse and believes the FFS methodology will have a positive economic impact on the region.

Personnel

GWSA has a staff of about 30 workers during the crop season. Two of them are permanent employees; the rest are part-time.

GWSA has a manager responsible for all cocoa purchases and another manager responsible for quality checks and daily drying. They both have a fixed salary
and a performance incentive at the end of the season (September to June).

One of them will attend the ToT as a backup Master Trainer for the Grand’Anse region. Also there will be three other staff members from the PAP center attending the TOT.

GWSA intends to retain some or all of the eighteen (18) Facilitator Trainers who will have trained approximately 4,800 farmers by March 2011.

Production

GWSA doesn’t produce cocoa. Every week GWSA in PAP wires money to Jeremie to their Purchasing Manager for the week’s operation.

He travels throughout the different regions depending on farmers’ market day.

The purchasing manager tests the cocoa beans before buying for humidity and moisture (no more than 3% moisture).

Once the cocoa has been purchased, it is sorted (all rejects are taken out) and then processed through different machines for cleaning.

The cocoa is then separated by lots depending on the percentage of mold.

Finally, the cocoa is mixed in order to comply with the 3% moisture accepted by the International Buyers.

One last quality check is done before filling the containers.

GWSA is very concerned about quality and never had a container rejected for any reason.

Inventory

GWSA usually packs the cocoa beans in sisal bags, and transport it via truck to the closest port to PAP weekly.

Normally, a good cocoa operator/exporter does not keep a high cocoa inventory
unless the global market experiences a sudden price decrease.

GWSA will make available a warehouse of 100 m2 and purchase 4000 sisal bags to transport the 497,000 lbs which CAUD and other farmers will have produced by March 2011.

Suppliers

Speculators are the ones dealing directly with the farmers.

GWSA buys from the speculators and also from the only cooperative in the area.

GWSA has been operating in Dame-Marie for 8 years and has been working on quality issues since.

The company looks forward to purchasing dried cocoa from CAUD and other farmers in the Grand’Anse region.

Positioning Strategy

GWSA uses the natural environment (glacis), tables, and plastic to process cocoa at its buying station in Dame-Marie.

The company adapts to new technology to obtain a differential advantage over the competition.

In addition, the FFS methodology will allow the farmers to produce a
better cocoa quality while increasing yield.

Product/Service Strategy

GWSA only export unfermented cocoa. Although there is a premium for fermented cocoa, the company is currently not involved in the production of fermented cocoa.

 

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@2009 MarChE