Dear fantastic readers and students:

Our master class today is about certifications. We were perplexed to realize that producers on upstream farms had been trading coffee or cacao beans without the formal requirements of the importing nations for more than a century. It wasn´t until the 1990s that certifications of the upstream farmers started.

Although it seems to us that trading of these precious commodities was based on faith between the upstream and midstream players, it is well possible that the whole global supply chain was so entangled among companies who comprehended each other very well that certifications were not needed. Before the 1990s, it looks like all the proprietors of companies producing, intermediating, manufacturing, and trading coffee and cacao were incumbents; probably sufficiently well known to each other. Multiple people managed the whole process through agents and intermediaries at the service of the coffee and cacao group’s dominant positions. The intermediaries (traders) of the beans were the agents of compliance. However, since the 1990s, it looks like new challengers arrived to take certain dominant spots in the global value chain, and with these new aspirants or contenders (from Asia and Africa), the commodities marketplace changed. It is during this decade that the new sustainability topics about caring for the land took a spotlight place. Suddenly, 30 years ago, the environmental theme was a priority because planet Earth started to show signs of sickness. In the agricultural sector, coffee and cacao markets of Western Europe and the USA woke up to see that the beans were produced in nations that suffered from a lack of environmental, social, and labor regulations. So, the solution to this issue was through farmers´ certifications, under the figure of voluntary sustainability standards (VSS).

The VSS were the tool used to improve what was missing at the upstream part of the procurement of raw inputs, and also to understand how the new producers of coffee and cacao were going to join the sector and comply with the bare minimum. At the same time, the certifications opened the door to these new aspirants of market share who couldn´t enter to sell the beans without a stamp of approval that could satisfy the demanding quality of the midstream and downstream players. The certifications were an instrument to establish the new minimum standards of quality, socio-environmental, and economic factors of the farmers (and their respective workers). More than thirty years have passed since then, and there are still outstanding issues that certifications have not yet solved in relation to the farmers’ quality of life, because there is a structural problem at the upstream level, and we have discussed it in previous chapters.

Let´s find out about the certification subject with our reference material prepared in advance for your study during the weekend. Feel free to share it with others and discuss it with your family and friends. Download the PDF file of the slides, read them, print them, write notes, and study them over the weekend.

We kindly ask that you return next Monday, the 10th of August, to review our strategic reflections on this chapter.
We encourage our readers to familiarize themselves with our Friday master class by reviewing the slides over the weekend. We expect you to create ideas that are or are not strategic reflections. Every Monday, we upload our strategic inferences below. These will be discussed in the next paragraph. Only then will you be able to compare your own reflections with our introspection. We always give our students a couple of days to prepare well before our final reflection.

Strategic reflections on this episode.
These will be in the section below on Monday, the 10th of August of 2026.

Announcement. Our next episode is about “key resources” for small farmers. We will continue using new examples for Ethiopian coffee and Indonesian Cacao.

Musical Section.
This saga is committed to raising the traditional musical instruments and their respective musicians over the digitally produced sounds. This saga is dedicated to the chamber orchestras. 
Today, we have chosen the Chamber Orchestra of New York, https://chamberorchestraofnewyork.org/. The orchestra is directed by Salvatore di Vittorio, conducting the piece Bolero by the French composer Maurice Ravel. Ravel wrote the Spanish-flavoured ballet piece for his friend, the Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein (1885-1960). The video below is from the German debut at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, June 25, 2026.

Enjoy!

Thank you for reading http://www.eleonoraescalantestrategy.com. It is a privilege to learn. Blessings.

Sources of reference and bibliography utilized for today´s inferences. The bibliography is listed on the last slide of the reference reading material. Click the respective URL to trace them.

Bibliography in this post: This will be added accordingly with the strategic reflections.

Disclaimer: Eleonora Escalante paints Illustrations in Watercolor. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY. All are used as Illustrative and non-commercial images. Utilized only informatively for the public good. Unless otherwise stated, I do not own any lovely photos or images.