BIJA Organic Direct-Trade Chocolates Information

Changing lives, One Bar at a Time. BIJA has always been more about people than chocolate. We wanted to do something that was different. So instead of buying from large cacao suppliers, we created direct trade partnerships with select women’s cooperatives in the Dominican Republic and Peru. These cooperatives partner with farmers who carefully nurture and harvest their organic cacao — producing the most complex, distinctively flavored bean-to-bar chocolate in the world.     The BIJA Mission We believe that if we invest in women they will reinvest in their families and their communities. By working with co-ops, we create real relationships with the women and pay them directly. This ensures greater economic opportunities to help their communities and families. At BIJA, we are mission-driven and see chocolate as a tool for social change. • We provide small women's cooperatives with organizational and financial support to bring their facilities into organic certification status. • We support small, local cacao growers and work towards getting each association certified organic through our partnerships. • We work directly with each women's cooperative as partners in our supply chain to ensure they are given the highest wage that exceeds fair trade premiums. • We created an international education exchange program that allows women's from our cooperatives in Dominican Republic or Peru to come to our manufacturing facility to learn about chocolate production from our master chocolatier. • We facilitate growth programs with regional governments that provides both organizational and financial support to assist each cooperative reach greater economic opportunities through exportation. Through established relationships and building deeper connections with local cacao producers, BIJA becomes a strategic partner that elevates and communicate the values and purpose on behalf of all our ingredient suppliers.