Part 1 / 3

Was ist passiert

Short version: We've had a crop failure, meaning we'll have to wait another year for African chilies. Until then, we'll continue to process Spanish chilies 🌶️.

Long version:

In fact, when SOCHILI was founded, the plan was for me to work with a farmer cooperative in Mali 🇲🇱. For this, we tried everything in early 2022 to import the first chilies from the farm – repeatedly without success. Anyone who has followed the news over the past two years can imagine how difficult this task is. In times of burgeoning terrorism and a military coup, we eventually had to pull the plug. Our first chili fail ❌.

Solution-oriented, we immediately looked for new partners in the beautiful neighboring country of Senegal 🇸🇳. After countless discussions and on-site visits, the long-awaited new hope emerged: a small farmer named Momo. I got to know Momo as a dedicated chili farmer who wanted to improve life for himself and his community.

We immediately established a good rapport, and I immediately set about making all the necessary preparations with Momo. As a result, I had designed a scalable impact model on how we could enable smallholder farmers, both men and women, access to fair trade and solar power ⚡️ through (1.) the cultivation of chilies and (2.) the sale of chili sauces. Months of preparation and discussions unfortunately did not help in the end to find common ground. It was now late 2022, and we were once again without chilies ❌❌.

Part 2 / 3

New Beginnings

At the time, this whole situation not only caused me extreme emotional distress but also impacted SOCHILI's strategic decisions: Instead of continuing to plan with small-scale farmers, I found an incredibly great farm through online research that cultivates and processes chilies regeneratively and organically in cooperation with a women's cooperative.

Without further ado, I adapted our impact model and planned with the farm for the cultivation of our chilies (~ 750 kg). However, since chilies don't just grow in two weeks, the next strategic decision was pending: We would start with chili sauces made from Spanish chilies (from our partner, who also cooks our sauces). This allowed us to bring chili sauces to the market that, as the only product worldwide with the 1:1 principle, provide access to electricity for the first time. Plus: We were able to generate important revenue to pay for our future batches 🌶️.

While we have been on the market with our sauces since March 2023, the cultivation of chilies in Senegal began in parallel to anchor more value creation in the Global South 🌱. In May, I was there again to get to know the farm, do a trial run, and carry out an (extremely expensive) test import. All of this to prepare for the large import this month 📦.

Crop failure

But as described at the beginning: This month is just hitting different. Because this month was already characterized by high bills and a lot of annoying bureaucracy for me. But it got even worse when the news came from Senegal that the entire harvest was destroyed.

A parasite (Meloidogyne incognita) spread across the field and attacked all the roots of the chili plants, causing the plants to die 😩. After three attempts and hundreds of hours of planning with farmers & customs brokers, I am still without African chilies today ❌❌❌.

Part 3 / 3

Let's continue

The process starts all over again, a true rollercoaster of emotions 🎢. Doesn't matter. Dust ourselves off & move on. So we will continue to process Spanish chilies until next summer. And while we sell our delicious sauces, the new plants in Senegal will grow, so that hopefully next summer we can stand there and (finally) say that we made it 💪!

With a positive view on this (triple) F*CK UP, I have learned a lot:

1. Organic and climate-friendly agriculture is incredibly difficult. And yet there is no alternative once you have understood the damage that synthetic pesticides cause to our environment 🌱.
2. Our consumption behavior, especially in the food sector, has long since lost touch with reality (=nature). For us, everything is always available, and even before this setback, I only superficially dealt with the origin of our food. That is changing radically now 🛒.
3. Social entrepreneurship requires a long breath, because it is about structural change. Building bridges to the Global South as a start-up to establish long-term and fair trade requires a lot of time and passion, because giving up is much easier. But this experience has shown me: I have this passion ❤️‍🔥!

Socially-spicy greetings
Moritz