by Daniel Johnson
May 25, 2025
Zacao, a chocolate company created by Ivorian-German model Zaina Gohou, is helping to change the chocolate industry for the better.
Ivorian-German model Zaina Gohou is challenging the exploitative roots of the global chocolate industry with her new brand, Zacao. In a recent Teen Vogue op-ed, Gohou—whose grandfather was a cacao farmer—explains how her company sources beans directly from farmers in West Africa, aiming to eliminate the human rights abuses and environmental destruction that have long plagued the industry.
Despite the creation of the World Cocoa Foundation in 2000, a January 2023 Guardian report found that labor abuses—including child labor—remain deeply entrenched in cocoa supply chains, driven by capitalism’s dependence on cheap labor. Major corporations like Nestlé, Mars, and Hershey continue to profit while African farmers bear the brunt of the system.
The report found that the system leads to the exploitation of the labor of poor farmers and even children in West Africa to extract profit for large corporations like Nestle, Mars, and Hershey.
According to Bill Guyton, a former president of the World Cocoa Foundation who became a senior advisor to the Fine Chocolate Industry Association, the only way to stop the exploitation of the African farmers is to go to the source.
“In mainstream chocolate, you have a whole system set up that doesn’t want to change,” Guyton told The Guardian. “You’ve got governments and large companies involved, and making changes to that system would require a new way of trading, and a new way of compensating farmers.”
With Zacao, Gohou is attempting exactly that—creating a model rooted in equity, transparency, and a rejection of the colonial legacy embedded in the chocolate trade.
Gohou, who insists that modeling was not a path she sought, was inspired to create change after the disconnect of seeing how people back home in West Africa who worked as cocoa farmers couldn’t afford to send their children to school or clean drinking water despite being directly responsible for producing the wealth of a $130 billion industry while she was offered chocolate as a treat by fashion brands.
The creation of Zacao required a bit of legwork from the model, but she refused to compromise on her standards: the chocolate must be clean, plant-based, and organic, produced with unrefined coconut sugar, and each step of the process would be produced transparently, minus any “bean-shifting.”
The chocolate is produced entirely in Ghana, which Gohou says often surprises people, but to her, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that Ghanaians have been making chocolate for generations.
“People are often surprised when they learn our premium chocolate is made in Ghana. But why shouldn’t it be? If champagne is made in France, why would chocolate not be made in Ghana or Cote d’Ivoire? Africa isn’t just a source of raw materials. Who better to make extraordinary chocolate than the people who’ve been cultivating these beans for generations,” Gohou wrote for Teen Vogue, closing with a rhetorical question.
As Gohou strives to create change within the chocolate industry itself, according to Zacao’s website, her company is already setting itself apart by partnering with more than 250 family-run farms in Ghana, paying each farmer $600 per ton of chocolate produced and in the process helping to create a source of highly skilled labor, nurturing the local economy and building economic prosperity for the workers at the company.
For Gohou, the end result and the real impact she wants to create is centered around the workers she wants to empower, closing her op-ed on a high and hopeful note, encouraging young entrepreneurs to follow her blueprint.
“When you’re creating something that genuinely helps people or the planet, your passion becomes your driving force, and people will want to see you succeed.” Gohou wrote. “I see a future where farmers are getting paid their fair share, can send their kids to school, have access to clean drinking water, and thrive because the local economy is growing. That’s the real impact I’m dreaming of.”
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