Email to a FriendOur Business Model
Our goal is to bring you unadulterated IgnaFire chocolates at a decent price, while maintaining conscientious business practices. This means minimizing the number of intermediaries so that we can pay our cacao suppliers the best price possible. Thus we are committed to an internet-centric sales strategy, where we don’t allocate any of what you, our customer, pay to a retail store for overhead, shelf space, and sales personnel. Instead, we pass on a much larger percentage of what you pay to our suppliers.
Our chocolate and chocolate box suppliers are both in Mexico. They are small, family-run operations and take great pride in their hand-made artisan products. Also, our cacao beans are harvested on family-run farms.
We use ethical trading practices for a number of reasons. First of all, it’s morally the right thing to do. Furthermore, the best way for a retailer to assure a reliable supply from their suppliers is to treat them well and fairly.
Because we pay fair prices for our materials, our suppliers are very responsive, regardless of the short-term ebbs and flows of the business climate (for example, world cacao prices). Greater profits enable them to improvise creative solutions when there are potential disruptions in the supply chain.
Thus, the more successful our suppliers are in their businesses, the more stable our supply will be in the long term. The family-run businesses will more likely be passed on from generation-to-generation, and keeping the business going will be attractive for the younger generations.
As we improve the socio-economic standing of our suppliers and their families, they will have greater access to higher levels of education. This can also contribute positively to our business relationships. Also, as our suppliers improve their standard of living, they have the opportunity to become more active members of their communities giving them and their neighbors stronger voices with which to demand public resources from their governments.
Finally, we want to present our chocolates “our” way, without having to invest in meeting brick and mortar retailers’ requirements, which usually involves some traditional packaging. Packaging for a physical retail store environment typically requires expensive commercial equipment; in order for you to notice our package on a store shelf, we’d have to plaster our logo on it, making it less re-usable and most likely creating useless trash.
We are fundamentally proud and excited about this venture. We see our success as a credible way to encourage others to engage in socially conscious business practices.