This Model Is Breaking the Chocolate Industry's 'Colonial Mindset'

Growing up in Germany as the granddaughter of an Ivorian cacao farmer created a paradox I couldn't ignore. We were surrounded by chocolate as an expression for love and connection during every seasonal celebration, while my father—who grew up on a cocoa farm—had never tasted a piece of chocolate in his childhood.

I never planned to be a model. After college, I was scouted unexpectedly at a local event in my small town. Within months, I found myself in Milan, the Maldives, then Paris, then New York, navigating a completely unfamiliar world of castings, fittings, and photo shoots. The transformation from student to international model happened almost overnight.

Those early years in modeling were a whirlwind of contrasts. One day I'd be the face of a luxury campaign, draped in couture and diamonds, being offered premium chocolate on set as a "special luxury”. Next, I'd be video-calling family back home, seeing the simple, challenging reality of life in West Africa where many cocoa farmers couldn't even afford clean drinking water or to send their kids to school. The disconnect was jarring.

These incredibly hardworking people are the backbone of a $130 billion industry, yet 58% of them live below the poverty line.

My work opened doors to collaborate with NGO’s in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. I started traveling to remote areas, sitting with farmers and hearing their stories firsthand. During one initiative against child labor run by a major chocolate corporation, I ended up crying in the car afterward. The gap between corporate promises and on-the-ground reality was heartbreaking.

That's when I realized I would harness the power of business to create positive change in the chocolate industry.

Working with progressive designers taught me something crucial: when brands commit to ethical practices, they can help transform entire industries.

Here's the thing about traditional chocolate companies: they can barely track where their beans come from. Trust me, there's a lot of "bean shifting" happening on the ground. No system reliably tracks bean origin. The fashion industry had already shown me that controlling your supply chain is essential for true sustainability on a human and environmental level.

So we decided to do things differently. During the pandemic, I started cold-calling everyone in the chocolate industry I could find in Africa. Almost everyone told me the same thing: "No, you need to call companies in Europe or the US—they make the chocolate! We just grow beans!"

The colonial mindset was alive and well.

I kept pushing until I found a newly opened, solar-powered factory in Ghana, surrounded by lush forest and cocoa farms. When I asked how I could help, they simply said, "We need to sell more chocolate!" Before I knew it, we partnered. And I was on a plane to Ghana to start this new chapter. ZACAO was born.

It was important to me that the chocolate would be completely clean, plant-based, and organic, using unrefined coconut sugar to avoid sugar spikes. No bloating or breakouts before a photo shoot!

I spent several weeks living in the small village surrounding the factory, developing the product– we'd have all our meals together, sitting around and joking. The community took me in, and I got really inspired by the farmers, the local team who took so much pride in their craft.

For us, exceptional food begins with securing premium ingredients at their source, and processing them freshly. You know chocolate is like making fine wine – every step counts for the flavor: clean farming without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, natural fermentation, sun drying, roasting… We know exactly where our beans come from and can ensure ethical and clean practices every step of the way, from tree to bar.