Objective

• Encourage the preservation of the ecosystem in areas of cultivation. In addition, fund volunteer reforesting efforts on areas that require intervention to accelerate the increase of biodiversity.

• Increase household income by improving the transparency of cocoa purchases, and offer higher than market pricing, with the intention to enrich more families and fund community development activities.

• Organise training opportunities to benefit the local Orang Asli community so that they can enjoy higher yield with better prices for local cocoa beans.

Challenge

Today, still many Orang Asli household live below the national poverty level, hampering their social mobility. While their livelihood is closely tied to the land, development has encroached into areas that the community depend on for survival. The fight for preservation and responsible land use must tackle the question of sustainable crop cultivation.

Social Enterprise

Dusun Merdeka source cocoa beans from local Orang Asli farmers at a fair price to empower and encourage them to regrow the once-neglected cocoa plantation in Semai, Pahang. The local communities they partner with have long practised farming with limited use of pesticide, fungicide, and herbicide, which preserves the nutrient-rich topsoil and its microbial ecosystem. They were able to safeguard the rich biodiversity of the land where cocoa is planted as cocoa plants need shades from larger trees to thrive. By partnering with Orang Asli, Dusun Merdeka has directly contributed to the improvement of livelihood of the low-income community in the area. The social enterprise will also provide training to educate the Orang Asli on how to produce cocoa beans with a higher yield.

Further, their unique cocoa processing technique will further highlight the uniqueness of Malaysian cocoa to local and international consumers. Dusun Merdeka has already acquired an excellent reputation and steady demand from local high-end restaurateurs and hoteliers for his uniquely Malaysian bean to bar chocolate. Dusun Merdeka is a social enterprise that aims to discover and revive the true potential of the cocoa industry in Malaysia and increase the appreciation of Malaysian home-grown chocolate locally and internationally. By incentivising the local indigenous community to grow cocoa based on flavour profile instead of yield volume, they empowered the local community to earn a steady stream of sustainable income as their operations grow. The social enterprise buys cacao pods that the Orang Asli families forage off their land and turns them into single-village origin chocolate that they sell under the Chocolate Concierge brand.

Organisation

Dusun Merdeka is a social enterprise that aims to discover and revive the true potential of the cocoa industry in Malaysia and increase the appreciation of Malaysian home-grown chocolate locally and internationally. By incentivising the local indigenous community to grow cocoa based on flavour profile instead of yield volume, they empowered the local community to earn a steady stream of sustainable income as their operations grow. The social enterprise buys cacao pods that the Orang Asli families forage off their land and turns them into single-village origin chocolate that they sell under the Chocolate Concierge brand.