A Day In the Life: Jack Steijn discusses Amsterdam’s Chocoa
Jack Steijn, of Equipoise, at ISM, as he prepares plans for Chocoa
Returning to a live format after the pandemic proved a memorable experience for the Chocoa cooca event in Amsterdam. Kathryn Brand quizzes co-organiser Jack Steijn on this year’s show
What were your expectations approaching the Chocoa event this year?
They have been exceeded. This was the first time that we had Amsterdam Cocoa Week. I was discussing with Chris Vincent, the president of World Cocoa Foundation, and we decided that it would be a perfect match if we would have both events in Amsterdam in one week, and call that the Amsterdam Cocoa Week so other organisations could organise their events at the same time. Shortly after, Cacao of Excellence joined. But that’s the theory. And then when it comes together, it’s actually turned out to be even better. World Cocoa Foundation has had more people at their events than at other events. And Chocoa has been more visited than at other events. So I think every sub-event has attracted more people than the venue ambition originally was. The next Amsterdam Cocoa week will start 17 February 2025.
What have been the main changes in the industry since the last event?
There are a lot of things that are changing. Of course the prices at this moment are different, you also see people work closer together, with the EUDR coming up. I think you will have more cooperation between smaller supply chains and this is something that is changing because of the regulation. There’s more pre competitive collaboration between the larger industries on improving traceability possibilities within countries but also on the need for more agroforestry and diversification.
How did you come to your role as a director of Chocoa?
The first year of Chocoa was in 2013, we started working on it in 2012. We are sustainability advisors on supply chain sustainability and thought that it’s no use to invest in sustainability if you don’t at the same time bring a market. We realised that the market for good quality, sustainable cocoa, wasn’t really growing as fast as the supply. So we organised Chocoa as a marketplace to increase the market for sustainable cocoa and actually the entire programme that we organise is to get more potential buyers to the marketplace.
What are the biggest challenges of running the event?
We are a four-person company. So, realising this enormous event with just four people, that’s the challenge. We started Chocoa, actually with two people and this year, for the first time, we have created a new company, it’s called The Company Behind Chocoa. We get support and when we get closer to the events, we hire more people and we have a lot of great volunteers that help us and contribute to the success, but from next week we are four people again. So that is something that is a big challenge.
What about your favourite aspects of leading this key show?
When we start, and I get to meet physically, all those people that I’ve been exchanging emails with, and throughout the event when people come to me and say, wow, we have managed this, we have managed that, and that is really great. And at the end, when we are discussing with exhibitors about their success stories. Sometimes people are here and they sell five container loads of cocoa; for small producers, those are really incredible things. That, I would say, is the payoff of the Amsterdam Cocoa Week: making impact together. If you really notice that we make that impact, that’s the nicest part of the of the organisation
