Behind the Beans with Soma Cacao
Dear Somaslurpers,
Firstly, thank you to everyone who checked in on our mental health following our last email.
We were a little delirious when we wrote it - delirious with joy at securing a new cacao origin, delirious with exhaustion after months of trying.
It struck us as we wrote the email that the process of finding our new cacao resembled the dating lives of our single friends - hours on Bumble, maybe-matches, maybe-nots, furtive messaging, misgivings, is he too short? Is she too hot? and so on.
Our “shirtless photos” reference was a nod to the nonsense that seems to happen on dating apps. To be clear: we have never sent shirtless photos to customs (nor do we intend to!) And to the person who requested: we will also not send shirtless photos to you!
The week is starting slowly at Soma.
We received news this morning (fully-clothed) that our next shipment of Mexican cacao has cleared customs. It should arrive at Soma HQ in the next few days. Sign up to get notified here.
Alistair is performing his weekly round of cold-calling cacao farmers.
Rose is finalising packaging for our new origin, and updating old packaging as she goes. She is extremely excited about a Zoom call with our new accountants.
Angela and Lyle are taking time off to go camping with their son Zai, who’s also been doing shifts in the warehouse during his last year of high school. Sinead (the genius potter responsible for our Soma mugs) is filling in for them in this week. She is also currently working on a special batch of Soma Cacao travel mugs.
Next door to us, our landlord Roger is puttering about framing paintings. Photographer Julien has sent through a video of the faces and places that make Soma Cacao.
Sophie did all her work in a flurry this morning, and has the afternoon off. It’s a lazy spring day at Soma.
We never imagined Soma would look like this when we started dealing cacao to fund our own habit during lockdown.
From then to now, Soma has grown immeasurably, but it has grown day-by-day and month-by-month. We have made a million small decisions, but we’ve made them one-by-one. Slowly we’ve built a business we’re proud of, that reflects our values, and seems to have developed a momentum of its own.
Soma feels adult. We (Rose and Alistair) also feel quite adult: we have our own home, and a little life all our own. Until now Soma has been a rollercoaster - we’ve jumped at every opportunity, and been quite impetuous. We feel that now is the time to slow down, be a touch more disciplined, and build lives for us and our staff around this little business.
The key to that is you: our loyallest Somis.
As we rein in our marketing budget, we rely more on our repeat customers.
Everything hinges on how happy we can keep our happiest Somis. You truly do become our most valuable asset.
We’re already working on a couple of ideas to keep even the fiercest cacao snobs among you excited. We want to expand our range of products, but we want it all to be top-quality. We want you to buy things at Soma because you trust that we have done the best possible research for you. We want to help the farmers we work with to build flourishing cacao farms, and to encourage others in their areas to do the same.
We want to do so many good things in the world of cacao.
If there’s anything you’d like to see happen at Soma, any requests or suggestions you’d like to make, please send them through.
Nothing helps us understand you better than you do.
With our love, and a sprinkle of cinnamon,
Rose, Alistair, Angela, Lyle, Zai, Sinead, Sophie, Julien, Roger, and all the other people who help make up Soma Cacao.
Rose, Alistair, Angela, Lyle, Zai, Sinead, Sophie, Julien, Roger, and all the other people who help make up Soma Cacao.
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