Video Transcript:

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>> I fell in love with chocolate originally as a kid. I loved Halloween candy. But up until I was a young adult, I didn't know where chocolate came from, and so I volunteered as a conservation volunteer working with [inaudible] indigenous cocoa farmers and there were Howler monkeys and we had this whole adventure in the rain forest. My curiosity was off the hook. I'm Joe, founder and CEO of Theo Chocolate.

>> I'm Debra, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Theo Chocolate. My entire life I've been a daily chocolate eater but I think it really wasn't until I got to know Joe that I started to understand the depth of the story of chocolate and all the social and environmental issues surrounding chocolate. I think it has special powers.

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>> After my experience in Central America, I saw that social and environmental degradation were really business problems and I wanted to help save the world by making chocolate. And I got into the cocoa industry importing cocoa beans and then working with manufacturers to make chocolate and we were doing organic chocolate here in the United States and in Europe. But after doing that for several years, I saw that if, that it was most important to control the brand and the message, control the manufacturing from the bean all the way to the finished product, and the supply chain, because if I was could build a vertically integrated business, I had the best opportunity to affect every part of the business and really create lasting change.

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There were no other companies producing organic fair trade chocolate because the barriers to entry are so high in this industry. If you wanted to go into the coffee business, all you need to do is buy a roaster and put it in your garage and you're done. Chocolate is a very complicated product to make so the majority of chocolate is made by only about 12 companies in the whole country, and they're doing such large volume that they control not only the manufacturing, but distribution. And they have extreme leverage on the producers. You know, we're really interested and care deeply about where all of our ingredients come from. Our business ethic is informed by our belief that all life on the planet is interconnected, that we need consumers to be healthy and well, our farmers to be healthy and well, and the entire planet to be healthy and well in order for us to be successful and profitable. Fair trade certification is important for us to build trust with our consumers that we do what we say we're going to do. And we choose IMO Fair for Life as our certification for fair trade. What's great about Fair for Life is that it is a certification that ensures the economic and social integrity of our entire supply chain, from the cocoa farmers that we work with all the way through to our own factory operations.

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I don't consider, I don't consider myself a whistle blower as much as --well, let me put it this way. The industry considers me a nuisance. What really we're doing is trying to give an alternative to practices that have contributed to social economic and environmental degradation. The average cocoa farmer earns less than a dollar a day for their entire family and they have very little options in cocoa growing regions to sell other cash crops. And as a result, they're beholden to an industry that is very oppressive. The cocoa price has been so low compared to the cost of their production that in West Africa, cocoa farmers have had to resort to slavery. One of the benefits of fair trade for cocoa farmers is that it's a transparent negotiating system that allows the farmers to improve the quality which in turn delivers a much better price to them on the farm. So we see this as a truly holistic approach to not only the products that we make or accessing certain kinds of customers, but really creating a profitable business model that is having a beneficial impact on us and the planet.

>> Theo for me is an example of what Joe and I envision as enlightened capitalism. We're the only organic fair trade certified bean to bar chocolate factory in the United States, which is pretty exciting so I like to say that we're trying to define the intersection of artisan world class chocolate making with sustainable practices. I like to say it's doing good while doing well. And so what that means is that we see ourselves as a triple bottom line company, which means we value people, the planet, and profit in equal measure, and none of those things suffer at the expense of something else. One of the most important steps that we've taken to hold ourselves accountable in terms of the way that we treat our own employees, is we recently underwent IMO Certification for our own factory. So what that means is that we hold ourselves accountable to the same fair trade standards that our farmers undergo. So we're subject to the same kind of scrutiny. But the reason that's so important to us is because we're very committed to transparency at every level of our supply chain. So if we don't fulfill our own, and embody our own values here within the company, within our own relationships with our own employees, then it's really meaningless. So, and that's an ongoing challenge for us. By far the most exciting thing about Theo, as we grow, is that we've really begun to be a voice for change. As we've developed a really loyal following for our products and the story and the work that we're doing in the developing world, it's given us a certain amount of credibility in terms of what we think is necessary for change and finding platforms to share that with people in really meaningful ways. For me, that's really, really exciting.

Does Theo use any of the four management approaches ( scientific management approach, functional approach, behavioral science approach, quantitative/systems approaches) Which ones? Explain your response.