Ceremonial Grade Cacao from Peru’s first all-Indigenous co-op.
We understand the need to source ethical products with good margins, and also the financial risk of trialling expensive items that sit on the shelf for months.
We also believe independent retailers deserve products supermarkets can’t sell.
In our zero-risk commitment to independent shops, we share direct-trade cacao with a 40% margin.
We’ll even buy back unsold stock.
Low minimum order
100% traceable supply chain
Heavy metal tested
Direct trade
Zero risk
Cacao Love is a zero-risk, high-margin product to meet the demand for ethically sourced Ceremonial Grade Cacao.
It’s easy to get started! ♥︎ Let’s work together!
01
Request a free sample
For staff and customer tasting.
02
Order cacao
Fast delivery, including all sales materials.
03
Re-order when it sells
All orders delivered in 72 hours!
What a slow hot drinks shelf is costing you
A tin of cocoa powder earns you a few pounds a facing, and the supermarket sells it cheaper. One facing of Cacao Love earns an average stockist about £1,697 a year in gross profit, selling 2.4 bags a week.
- Your margin40%
- Gross profit per bag£13.60
- Cost per bag£20.40
- Your margin42.5%
- Gross profit per bag£14.45
- Cost per bag£19.55
- Your margin45%
- Gross profit per bag£15.30
- Cost per bag£18.70
Yearly figures use the average rate of sale across five stockists, 2.4 bags a week. Trade prices are held for 30 days from your tasting.
Over 194,860 cups of cacao shared every year!
Average based on over 7,516 orders
2m+
Cups of cacao shared!
10+
Years serving cacao
350+
Families supported
3,867+
Acres of Amazon rainforest protected
2,324+
Trees planted
Will it move?
Our stockists sell an average of 2.4 retail units a week. One delivery lasts five to ten weeks on the shelf.
| Shop | Stocking us for | Units a week | Units per delivery | Reorders every |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health food shop, Devon | 2 years | 3.96 | 19.5 | 5 weeks |
| Wholefood co-op, East Sussex | 14 months | 2.68 | 16.9 | 8 weeks |
| Food store, Merseyside | 2 years | 2.24 | 23.0 | 10 weeks |
| Eco supermarket, Somerset | 14 months | 2.04 | 10.6 | 4 weeks |
| Retail shop, West Yorkshire | 13 months | 1.15 | 9.3 | 10 weeks |
Measured across five shops and 377 trading weeks, from our own order records. Five counties, Devon to West Yorkshire.
Who buys it. Yoga and breathwork practitioners, people moving away from coffee, and women roughly 30 to 55 in wellness. If you sell magnesium, adaptogens or matcha, it is the same shopper. If there is a yoga studio or a breathwork teacher near you, that is your customer walking past the door.
The category. Search interest in ceremonial cacao runs at roughly 30,000 searches a month in the UK and is up around 12% year on year, peaking in September, December and January. Steady growth rather than a spike, which is what a shelf wants.
"I ask that blessings fall upon everyone who drinks our cacao, so that the blessings of our forest plantations can continue to support us. May our brothers and sisters continue to be imbued with more strength in their search for wellbeing with cacao. Pasonki"
Ángel Pedro Valerio
Asháninka leader, president of CARE, an organisation that represents 23 Indigenous communities, some living in voluntary isolation.
The families who grow this cacao live entirely from their forests in the Central Highlands of Peru, on small family plots inside a diverse forest ecosystem. They belong to the first all-Indigenous co-operative founded in Peru, which became the template other organisations used to build their own, and every decision in it is made by the community, for the community.
The growers weigh their own sacks, are paid in cash in their homesteads, and set the asking price themselves. We do not negotiate it.
The person managing bean selection, roasting and grinding is Jeny Bustamante Rodríguez, part of a new wave of women leading Peruvian cacao production.
- Single origin Peru
- 100% cacao
- Asháninka grown
- Dairy
- gluten and sugar free
- Vegan
- 18 month date
Cacao Love is proudly Asháninka grown.
We have personal, direct and ongoing relationships with the farmers who tend the orchards that produce our cacao. Created in small forest clearings, these remote villages are located six hours up river from the nearest town of Satipo, in the Junín province of Peru.
Self-governing communities
The Asháninka are largest Indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon. They are organised as a network of autonomous communities, a political structure that has sustained their resilience across centuries.
Sacred plant medicine
Central to traditional healing in Asháninka culture is the use of sacred plant medicines, including ayahuasca, coca and tobacco.
Diverse ecosystem
The Junín National Reserve protects over 53,000 hectares of high-altitude wetlands, hosting diverse wildlife, migratory birds, insects, and native frogs.
Located in the Central Highlands
Junín is a high-altitude province located in the central highlands of Peru. It sits at an elevation of over 4,100 metres and is home to Lake Junín, the largest lake in Peru.
Your margin
RRP £34 for 450g.
At the average rate of sale, an opening order of 12 bags sells through in 5 weeks and returns £163 of gross profit.
What one facing earns you in a year
| At each order size | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| If you sell | 12 bags | 24 bags | 48 bags | |
| 1.2 bags a week | our slowest shop | £849 | £902 | £955 |
| 2.4 bags a week | the average | £1,697 | £1,803 | £1,909 |
| 4.0 bags a week | our best shop | £2,829 | £3,006 | £3,182 |
Nothing at risk on the first order
Sale or return on six of your first twelve bags.
Your opening order is 12 bags. You pay for six. The other six are on sale or return for ninety days, and if they have not sold we collect them and pay the carriage both ways.
One consignment per shop. From your second order it is a normal trade account.
Why £34
£34 sounds like a lot until you divide it.
| Serving | Servings per bag | Cost per serving | How long a bag lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11g daily practice | 40 | 85p | About six weeks |
| 15g generous cup | 30 | £1.13 | About a month |
| 25g ceremony serving | 18 | £1.89 | 18 ceremonies |
| 42g ceremonial dose | 10 | £3.40 | 10 ceremonies |
A takeaway flat white is £3.50 to £4.00. A daily cacao practice costs about a quarter of a coffee shop habit, and that line goes on the shelf talker we supply.
Every harvest of Cacao Love is lab tested for heavy metals.
Cacao trees are known as "hyper-accumulators," which means that they absorb nutrients and minerals from the soils they grow in, concentrating them in the seeds.
This unfortunately includes heavy metals that might be present in the environment where cacao grows.
When Consumer Reports tested 28 dark chocolate bars in 2022, they discovered that most of them contained lead and cadmium above California’s safe daily thresholds.
Cadmium is a naturally occurring element found in mineral-rich volcanic soils, whereas lead is generally a post-harvest contaminant that enters the production chain via dust from roadside drying.
Thankfully, there is very little cadmium in the forest soils of Peru's Central Highlands, and our cacao is fermented and dried in forest clearings alongside the river, hours from the nearest road.
We test every harvest of Cacao Love, and our results have always demonstrated extremely low readings of all heavy metals.
The specification
Nutrition, per 100g
High in iron, high in fibre, high in magnesium, and sugar free.
What we supply with it
- A product specification sheet for your compliance file
- The Certificate of Analysis, reissued on every production lot
- A shelf talker that answers “what is this and why is it £34” without the customer having to ask anyone
- A counter card
- A one-page staff sheet and a ninety-second training video
- Two bags of staff tasting stock with every order
- A tasting in your shop, twice a year. We pour, your customers drink, you take the sale
Trade terms
Will it move, or will it sit there?
Our shops sell 2.4 retail units a week on average, and a delivery lasts five to ten weeks on the shelf. That is measured across five shops and 377 trading weeks.
If you would rather see for yourself than take our word for it, six of your first twelve are on sale or return.
How is this different from the cacao powder I already stock?
Powder is pressed and the cacao butter is removed and sold on separately. This is the whole bean with the fat left in, ground to 20 microns. A different product on a different shelf, at a higher price point.
My customers will not know what it is.
Shelf talker, counter card, one-page staff sheet and a ninety-second training video, all supplied. Plus two bags of staff tasting stock with every order, because a member of staff who can describe it sells more of it than any point-of-sale material.
Does it contain caffeine?
Yes. We have measured theobromine at 962 mg per 100g and have not yet assayed caffeine, so we publish no figure for it.
Plenty of brands in this category claim their cacao has no caffeine at all. They are wrong, and we would rather tell you the truth and show you the lab report.
What about cadmium in chocolate?
A fair question, and one most suppliers avoid. Cadmium occurs naturally in the volcanic and alluvial soils of many parts of Peru, and the cacao tree takes it up through its roots.
We test every harvest. The current batch came back at under 0.002 mg/kg against a legal maximum of 0.80, which is at most a four-hundredth of the limit. The Certificate of Analysis shows the reading, the method used, and the smallest amount that method can detect.
What is the shelf life?
18 months from production, stated on every bag with the batch number. A solid block with no spoilage risk, which is a real advantage over most premium food lines.
Is it organic or certified?
No. We buy direct from a named Indigenous co-operative and we would rather tell you exactly who grows it than pay for a logo.
Do you supply my wholesaler?
Direct only, which is why the margin is yours.
Can I try it first?
Yes. Let us bring cacao to you and make it for you and one member of your team. Fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes and a tasting.
Let us bring cacao to you and make it for you and one member of your team. Nothing sells this product like drinking it, and fifteen minutes is all we are asking for.
If it lands, your opening order is 12 bags at £244.80, with six of them on sale or return.
Gavin Kendrick · info@cacaolove.co.uk
