Growing our partnerships with cooperatives Our collaboration with partner cooperatives is critical to delivering meaningful impact for farming communities. In the 2024/25 season, we sourced cocoa through 19 partner cooperatives – 15 in Côte d’Ivoire and 4 in Ghana. We also onboarded 3 new cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire who will begin delivering cocoa in the 2025/26 season, further strengthening our network. Tony’s Open Chain works with partner cooperatives via a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that guarantees at least 5 years of collaboration and enables them to sell their cocoa to other buyers. Unlike conventional contracts where buyers hold all the leverage, Tony’s Open Chain’s MoUs are designed to address structural inequalities in the cocoa supply chain, offering farmers greater agency and security in the process of selling their cocoa. This long-term approach not only empowers cocoa-growing communities but also enables partner cooperatives to develop comprehensive 5-year strategic plans together with the Tony’s Open Chain team. Grounded in shared commitments, this plan serves as a roadmap for the partnership, guiding annual planning, implementation and progress evaluations.
When we onboard new partner cooperatives, we provide them with an Initial Collaboration Agreement which covers 6 months of pre-season onboarding and the first 12-month cocoa season. In this first phase of the partnership, partner cooperatives establish the foundational processes required to begin driving impact and delivering on key claims such as operational traceability and the CLMRS, supported by start-up funding from Tony’s Open Chain. At the end of this initial period, Tony’s Open Chain and the partner cooperative evaluate together whether they are ready to enter into a 5-year MoU. The partnership is built on mutual responsibility: cooperatives are expected to implement the necessary systems, while Tony’s Open Chain provides technical and financial support (including coverage of installation costs and cooperative management fees) to enable successful implementation. 31
KEY DIFFERENCES
CONVENTIONAL BUYER CONTRACTS
TONY’S OPEN CHAIN MOU
Duration
5-year commitment
Often short-term
Equal partnership with a focus on dialogue and shared responsibility, e.g., for the co-creation of annual plans Commitment to paying, at minimum, a Living Income Reference Price, which offers farmers stability and the ability to invest in their farms over the long term Collaborative: the MoU is written as a mutual agreement, rather than a top- down imposition
Power Dynamics
Buyer-dominated
Market-driven and therefore volatile, leaving farmers vulnerable to unpredictable market fluctuations Transactional, prioritising commercial terms and mitigating risks for the buyer
Pricing
31. For definitions of all partner cooperative categories, see KPI 1.3 in Interesting Appendices.
Tone
28
Ending exploitation in cocoa together
Living income
Climate, environment & productivity
Human rights
Governance & finances
Interesting appendices
Scaling for change
Introduction
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