Impact Investing | October 15, 2024

Blue Stripes raises $20 million for sustainable cocoa products

Roodgally Senatus
ImpactAlpha Editor

Roodgally Senatus

Expect fewer, and smaller, chocolate bars in your bag this Halloween. Prices for cocoa, a key ingredient in chocolate, have skyrocketed amid changing weather patterns in West Africa, a major cacao supplier (see, “How climate change is making your groceries more expensive”).

Prices have doubled this year alone after an unusually dry season decimated crops; heavy rains are delaying harvests. Cacao farmers also face deforestation, child labor and fair trade challenges.

Israeli chocolatier Oded Brenner, who previously founded global chocolate retail chain Max Brenner, launched New York-based Blue Stripes in 2018 to “to change what happens behind the scenes of the cacao industry.” For Brenner, that means reducing cacao farming’s impact on the environment and improving the economic value farmers receive for their work.

Blue Stripes makes cacao-based products including flavored water, chocolate bars and dried fruits. using a process that minimizes cacao fruit waste and better compensates small cocoa farmers. The company uses the 70% of the fruit that is typically thrown away in the traditional chocolate-making process. 

Economic mobility

Blue Stripes’ Series B round was led by Zintinus, a food-tech venture capital fund in Berlin, along with The Hershey Company and Whole Foods Markets. Hershey’s investment comes from “Cocoa for Good,” the company’s 10-year, $500 million strategy to address climate and labor challenges facing cocoa farmers in West Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

The chocolate giant has five-year partnerships with nine cocoa-producing cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer, where just 13% of cacao farmers earn a living wage.

“Improving farmer incomes requires a holistic approach and collaboration,” said Hershey’s Tricia Brannigan. Last year, Hershey launched a $40 million “income accelerator” program for cacao farmers in Côte d’Ivoire.