Zaina.net
Zaina Gohou is a German-Ivorian fashion model and entrepreneur whose work increasingly centers on ZACAO, her Ghana-made chocolate brand designed to shift value back to cocoa-growing communities. Drawing on family roots in West Africa, she frames ZACAO as a response to a persistent contradiction: farmers who cultivate cocoa often capture only a small share of chocolate’s economic upside. She uses her modeling career as a platform for reach, while positioning the company’s mission and operating choices as the main story across Europe and beyond.
ZACAO describes itself as “tree to bar” in Ghana, emphasizing manufacturing at the source to create higher-skilled local jobs, nurture communities, and build local prosperity. The brand positions its bars as organic and plant-based, produced in a solar-powered facility and wrapped in 100% recyclable packaging, with ingredients that include unrefined coconut sugar. ZACAO also states it partners with 250+ small family farms and pays farmers a premium (including a cited $600 per ton figure), and describes paying premiums higher than Fairtrade rates to put more cash directly into farmers’ hands. The intent is to shorten supply chains, reduce opaque intermediaries, and make pricing and provenance easier to verify. 
The wider movement matters because cocoa supply chains have been repeatedly linked to poverty-level farm incomes and to documented labor abuses, including child labor, in West Africa. Ghanaian farmers have publicly pushed for living-wage economics and stronger accountability mechanisms, underscoring that “ethical chocolate” is a human-rights and governance challenge, not just branding. By insisting on at-source manufacturing and transparent sourcing norms, ZACAO aligns with a broader push to keep more of the value-add in producing countries, reduce wasteful logistics, and improve resilience in food production by making supply chains simpler, shorter, and more locally beneficial while still competing on taste and quality in export markets.
ZACAO describes itself as “tree to bar” in Ghana, emphasizing manufacturing at the source to create higher-skilled local jobs, nurture communities, and build local prosperity. The brand positions its bars as organic and plant-based, produced in a solar-powered facility and wrapped in 100% recyclable packaging, with ingredients that include unrefined coconut sugar. ZACAO also states it partners with 250+ small family farms and pays farmers a premium (including a cited $600 per ton figure), and describes paying premiums higher than Fairtrade rates to put more cash directly into farmers’ hands. The intent is to shorten supply chains, reduce opaque intermediaries, and make pricing and provenance easier to verify. 
The wider movement matters because cocoa supply chains have been repeatedly linked to poverty-level farm incomes and to documented labor abuses, including child labor, in West Africa. Ghanaian farmers have publicly pushed for living-wage economics and stronger accountability mechanisms, underscoring that “ethical chocolate” is a human-rights and governance challenge, not just branding. By insisting on at-source manufacturing and transparent sourcing norms, ZACAO aligns with a broader push to keep more of the value-add in producing countries, reduce wasteful logistics, and improve resilience in food production by making supply chains simpler, shorter, and more locally beneficial while still competing on taste and quality in export markets.