Controlling risks in sea transportation of cocoa beans

Due to the importance of cocoa in the food industry, there is a greater need to transport this commodity with fewer rejections and damage to quality. Growing in the tropical areas of the world, cocoa beans travel a considerable distance to their main importing destinations located in North America and Europe, most of which is covered by sea transport. Although an increasing amount of organizations is being involved in enhancing sustainable methods of farming practices to combat cocoa bean losses, this paper focuses on the loss identification incurred during sea transportation. The factors which adversely affect the quality of cocoa beans have been identified through literature and expert interviews and simulated using a System Dynamics modelling software. The main focus of this paper is whether the oft-cited ventilated-container mode of shipment is indeed the recommended solution to all the major risk factors affecting the quality of cocoa beans. In an attempt to mirror the real-time effects experienced by the beans during the sea journey, through the results of these simulations, we get an overview of how each risk factor is triggered and contributes to the degradation in the quality of the cocoa beans with and without the presence of countermeasures, like ventilated container, etc. These results also help us to ascertain the impact of countermeasures in different points in time of the journey, which leads to the conclusion of how a certain countermeasure may be extremely beneficial under one scenario but detrimental under others. Ventilation, as this research suggests, proves advantageous only at higher temperatures but disadvantageous at lower temperatures.