Small business can change the world (and this is how) with Living Koko
Live Chat with Fipe Preuss from Living Koko
Today I'm chatting with Fipe Preuss from Living Koko. Her business began to empower our communities here and in the Pacific Islands through fair, ethical trade and bring the best cacao in the world to you. They work hard to support ecologically sound and sustainable methods of farming. Their vision was to create opportunities for the Pacific Island domestic plot farming communities, believing in food sovereignty. Everyone has the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. Living Koko is truly changing lives.
During this episode, Fipe and I discuss:
How your businesses make change at a local level can start to have bigger impacts
How to do business ethically in communities that respect farmers and elders
Where Fipe draws her inspiration from.
You can connect with Living Koko through these links: Website – Instagram – Facebook
Audio
Transcript
Fiona Johnston 00:00
Hello, I’m coming to you live from the hottest day in the world just have to work out how I’m going to add my beautiful Fipe In All right, so yes, we pick the hottest day of the world’s hottest day of the year, it’s 36 degrees at 7 pm. So, as you can imagine, this hot body over here is bloody hot. And I’ve got my awesome fan from Casa Bonita, who’s going to be doing a live with me next week. So that’s awesome. Hello, everybody. It’s so nice to see people’s names and faces. Just wait for my lovely friend. Sorry, Darwin people. I know. It’s probably like 200 degrees there. Or something. Let’s say Here she goes. Oh, yeah, it’s coming. You’re drenched.
Fipe Preuss 01:32
Yeah. I'm in Cairns, I came up to Cairns to get some sunshine. And it's like raining!
Fiona Johnston 01:42
Do you know it's 36 degrees here right now at 7pm. Anyway, we're both here. And it's very exciting. I'm just trying to calm myself down. So welcome. Thanks for coming Fipe. I thought maybe I might just give a little quick intro of how we know each other and your business.
So I'm coming from Wurundjeri country right now. Do you know whose country Fipe? Let's work it out later during the session. But yeah, I'm coming from the Wurundjeri country. And of course, that is the lens of the Wurundjeri and the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Nations. And as I learned quite recently, the call of nations is made up of five communities of which were hungry and one or two of those communities that make up the Kulin Nation. So that's where I'm coming to you from, also known as Melbourne are now and Fipe is currently in Cairns, which is not where she normally is. She's up there on holiday, or is it a work trip?
Fipe Preuss 02:56
Bit of both become a work thing? Yeah, I've been so busy. It's become a work thing, keeping up with the administration. But I'm on Yirrganydji Country.
Fiona Johnston 03:17
Love it. So yeah, just giving some shout-outs to the elders of all of the communities that we are on the lands and waters off. And Fipe and I have known each other since I moved to Melbourne, we were introduced by a mutual friend, the beautiful Zeb Brown, who probably doesn't even have an Instagram account because it's so cool. And Fipe’s business is called Living Koko. And I think she's been a business for around five years, and we are maybe longer than that might be eight years. You can tell everyone in a moment. And yeah, Fipe and I have done a little bit of consulting together and she's done my Get Financially Fit group program, too. So yeah, did you want to tell everyone that's watching a little bit about your kind of business adventure to get here and why you started Living Koko.
Fipe Preuss 04:11
Ah, that's a really long story. I guess to start with I… began as a community development practitioner. So I've noticed that throughout my life, everything that I've done in a career or even …. in different ways was a response to supporting the community. You need that. Oh, Living Koko is just sorry. Headphone interference
Fiona Johnston 04:42
I don't know if your earphones are going a little… you’re back!
Fipe Preuss 04:45
Okay, cool. So I think Living Koko is just kind of an extension of cacao has been in my family for many generations to support it. To support village economies, the more vulnerable it was kicked out. I have been home, on and off for many years teaching scuba diving, and just travelling running indigenous art festivals. But my heart was always in Samoa. And be constantly presented with cacao that kept coming up in conversation with elders and community leaders that we realise the journey that we were going to go down, so we weren't chocolate makers. Or we were cacao lovers, but we weren't chocolate makers or we didn't know how to manufacture. My family grew up on cacao plantations. So the indigenous conservation of cacao was something that I think was passed down via osmosis. But the actual manufacturing and making chocolate and all that jazz, we learned over the last year or two years of starting.
Fiona Johnston 06:10
Yeah, so yeah, cacao is in your Samoan ancestry and blood. And I love I might be paraphrasing this wrong, but that cacao and blood, the same word in someone, am I right?
Fipe Preuss 06:28
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, the word for cacao is koko. But also the word for blood, Koco or Toto. So we swap and change our T’s and K’s depending on who is speaking to space of the other word for blood, is lalolagi, which is like Earth. Like, there are so many beautiful words. Fanua means the land, but it's also the same word. So these were sent really connect our bodies and the sacred parts of our physical beings.
Fiona Johnston 07:08
I love that. I could listen to you talk about your Samoan words, all day sharing. So I think we probably know a little bit about why you started your business, you know, Living Koko and I know that you have multi passions. You have lots of different things that you do, career and business-wise. But tell me when we think about using small businesses, as a way of changing the world for the better, which is what this content series is about? What was the change that you wanted to make in the world that led you to go down the road of starting, Living Koko, importing beautiful cacao from Samoa to Australia, and then creating beautiful chocolate and cacao products? So what was the change that you wanted to see in the world that led you to do all of that?
Fipe Preuss 08:09
I think the start was a, I guess, a change within the world of Samoa. My focus a first started was, you know, how do we support village economies? How do we ensure food sovereignty? How do we make sure that our people have, you know, the balance of power within our systems, it's always profit in the transaction of the marketing side at the end to the consumer. Like that's where the profits are. So how do we make sure that there's a shared value approach in the way we approach our business? Approach the cacao, that, you know, I guess that it all started to that at first, it was like, how do we get them money? Laughs And, you know, it was it's, like this other question that comes up, and you're like, oh, okay, so how do we do this? But how do we do each step with integrity? So I must say, like, there wasn't any, you know, we had a business plan, but there was also a very I guess, fluid way of thinking to ensure that everything step that we made was made with integrity, and made to ensure that everyone's supported along the way so you know, I think the statement of changing the world when I read your post, I was like, oh my gosh that’s huge!!
Fiona Johnston 09:37
Well, I mean, by changing our local community, right, I think you've had an impact on many people. You're just being very humble in this moment. Own the spotlight.
Fipe Preuss 09:50
Yeah, as you said, you just consider your local community and how you can support that and then I guess as each step happens, and you Think of a way of doing something better with a hotly valued space, then I just wanted to share it with people. I call, we're gonna do this and we think this is the right way, we're going to do it all like, are we're going to try and do solar? Or are we actually going to do zero waste? To make sure that we're using all components that the beans and how we're going to do that? Okay, well, we're gonna get in touch with other industries because it's not just about chocolate. Cacao can be part of your full well-being for supporting yourself in your home. Space, I can go into the beauty industry as a body scrub. So, yes, through every step. As our business expanded, it was about how do we take each step with integrity. And then how do we share with people because it you know, a lot of these steps, you're so in the grind of it, that you don't have the time and the headspace to pick up that book, you know, and read that book or on the steps or on these learnings. So as each step went along, we were like, how we're changing the way where we see business being done. Like then that doesn't feel right for us, it feels kind of gross. So we're gonna do it this way.
Fiona Johnston 11:26
Yeah. I remember having a conversation with you, I can't remember exactly when it was. And the context was something like, you know, we're currently able to find a home for (these aren't the right numbers), but 100 kilos of cacao each year? How do we get it to be a ton? Or five times or 10? times? You know, how do we actually get to the sort of scale where we can actually buy a lot of cacao from, you know, all of the small farmers that we're buying from now? So how has that kind of led us you know, is do you think about your business in the context of, you know, as we grow, that means more farmers that were able to support? Or do kind of imagine cacao in tonnes? Or tell me about the sort of how you think about the kind of volume and scale.
Fipe Preuss 12:20
The answer is, yes, it will those questions. Yes, yes, yes.
So to start with, you know, on, I guess, on the business side, for us, thinking of shipping and things like that, we knew that we needed to get a container load that a container load was going to help decrease our shipping costs. And ended up with profit margins and things like that. Because for many years, as many business owners in the space would know, especially manufacturers, you're running everything at a loss for a number of years. And you know, and you think you get to a point where you're like, Okay, maybe we can make some money. Now you realize, when you're running all your machines at full capacity, you're still paying rent, still not quite making the mark. So then as you level up one machine, you see all these choke points along the way. So you got to level up each machine and machines cost a fortune. So I guess on a business perspective, in the, you know, in the Melbourne side, we're thinking of it that way. And how do we get that container? But then in the in, in the other world, other space, I can Samoa more and what's going on there? As you know, there's lots of Talanoaga or Talanoaga is an insert, you know, deep, deep discussion in sharing stories for the greater good. So there's all these discussions and deep listening, that's happening within the Samoa space that is about. Firstly, if we're exporting, if we're exporting milk the cow has at us at what how do we make sure it doesn't affect prices? Of a cow for our families? How do we make sure that we've grown enough cocoa in Samoa? Samoa was one of the only countries in the Pacific that could add a ton more cacao or consumes more cocoa than it actually exports. It’s Wow, a traditional drink our national drink. Yeah. So there was a time where I think we got like $300 or more. We got a phone call from my mom, and my mom was saying, he just called it and called me and they're saying that Coco is now this price. Oh, God is so expensive. And we think it's you!
Fipe Preuss 14:54
the advisory group of elders come together and spoken. So then it was like this So Well, you know, how do we grow more power and more. And those conversations led to Samoa on the Chamber of Commerce, as well as somebody cocoa, which is the cacao farm where a lot of our post harvesting processes take place, then we'll be together and creating a program that gave free seedlings to anyone who wanted to cultivate cacao. So there was an activation of bringing in youth groups, youth groups about how to grow seeds, using indigenous ways of cultivation, the old ways, you know, I guess, resurfacing that knowledge about our relationship as human beings to the cosmos and also to them. And that reconnection. Yeah, that reconnection to that. All those conversations were happening, they were competitions within the, with the youth group, so if you know whose cocoa was growing the fastest. Yeah, and then all this cocoa was giving it to anyone who wanted to cultivate, given for free, as well as education on how to grow. And as knowing that, you know, in about three and a half years, these trees were going to fruit, it takes about three and a half years for the trees to fruit. Yeah, and then there'll be more cocoa and some more that we can export. So it's like, Okay, guys, we got three and a half years, how are we going to get? Yeah. And on this side? How are we going to, you know, level up our machinery and get ourselves ready in Melbourne, you know, we got a bigger factory, we everything was really, and then bang on that container ready to go.
Fiona Johnston 16:53
So you've, you've really, you've used your intuition and your experience in other industries and the other businesses that you have been part of to, to kind of take those steps to be ready for this, you know, a vision that you have for Living Koko. Is that how you kind of see the trajectory?
Fipe Preuss 17:16
Yes, yes, intuition. I think I think for myself, and for a lot of like Pacific people, and for a lot of people. We definitely have grown up as places where we needed to read energy and read the room. And so going back home to Samoa, it's not just about what's being said, but also about what's not being said. Yeah, and you know, the importance of seeing those silences from certain people. And then making sure that we're asking the right questions to the right people to understand what's happening in that space. So we don't put extra pressure on certain families that aren't ready to know, to be part of it, but also know that the doors are always open. You know, I joke about this community of elders that tell me all the time, but they're also an incredible link to what is happening on the ground. Our Elders are talking, you know, so that's what they do, they talk and they share story and in the sample, and Wi-Fi is really fast when they're around because information travels really quick! And so we know what's on the ground. And we know how we can change our, our approach and think in a western space, they can be very, very masculine energy, when are things coming? What's happening, you need to be on board, blah, blah, blah. But it doesn't. It has conversations with mommy, my Auntie's would just soften me. Remember that there is a whole human side to this space? And you know, why you're doing it? Yeah, I'm doing it to make money for myself. And in this chocolate space, it's like, everyone needs to be on this journey.
Fiona Johnston 19:05
Yeah, business can be good for everybody. You know, that, you know, I like to think that the original kind of business long before capitalism, or any of the kinds of structures and mechanisms that we have today, the original kind of business was about trading, you know, I can grow cocoa, you can grow corn, this person knows how to, I don't know, grow some other thing. And it was about trading different things with each other. And of course, that has sort of grown over 1000s and 1000s of years into what we now know, as business or capitalism. So, you know, have you found that there's been different cultural sort of protocols or, you know, any sort of resistance from your community in terms of, you know, this word business, coming into the mix of something that is so sacred into somehow.
Fipe Preuss 20:08
Not, not necessarily, for us. But I've heard many stories in the space of businesses, Western businesses coming to town war to the islands and promising a lot and just not coming back. And farmers pulling out their plantations and replanting the next big fad that this business has said is going to happen. And then they're going to come back to buy it all up. And people are going to come back and a lot of business ensembles are done on your word. So on a handshake and on word, so there's a lot of trust, or there was a lot of trust, because of my family name, because of my grandfather, and what he did for, for cacao farmers. And so because of that, there's just this intergenerational respect that we're really blessed to have. So there were a lot of farmers that we approached that as soon as they heard my grandfather's name, they, they understood that we were there, who there for the long haul, and we would keep showing up. And it made me you know, you can do business in Australia, and no one really notices. Like no one really cares. You know, it's all
Fiona Johnston 21:48
Like, oh, yeah, I thought it was Steve, I thought it was Lucky or whatever.
Fipe Preuss 21:55
We're back home, you know, your, your full name and your independent mother's maiden name. My grandfather? Yeah, created an incredible door open to the critical door for cocoa.
Fiona Johnston 22:13
Yeah, yeah. And, as you say, you know, that idea of being there for the long term, which is what you've always been about, I think a lot of that plays, it's why to add in community development sort of landscapes as well, this idea of, you know, this particular idea, or cause, or the or business or whatever it is, you know, somebody's coming in for this kind of short, sharp, you know, experience is real, it can be really damaging to the community. So your business is really about how do we actually make a long-term business that has sustainability, longevity, and, you know, honours that sort of cultural heritage of where it's all, what it's all about. I hope I’m summing it up the right way.
So, a journey, like that. Or a long, you're kind of adventure, you know, learning to be in different roles within Living Koko and growing to different levels and encountering new challenges. Challenges to overcome. Is there anything that has helped sort of guide you? Has there been a person who has inspired? Has there been a book that you've read that you always go back to? Or a quote? Or is it listening to your Mum's beautiful singing? What is it that helps you kind of keep moving through those challenges?
Fipe Preuss 23:48
Everything. Sometimes just that overwhelming pressure of responsibility. Laughs. That helps me show up! Yeah. Well, yeah
Fiona Johnston 24:04
Like being accountable to your community and your staff?
Fipe Preuss 24:07
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's taken me a long time to figure out the right flow within my body, to manage the business and the hold space in all of that. Yeah, but that's another thing. But definitely my Mum, my mother. My dad's passed now. Knowing the way he did community engagement is to bring all have our family together and actually the whole street together and hopefully everyone, street and all the parents from our primary school. So just the way he engages with people, the activities, buys me to take things too seriously for her, my Mum for her Mum used to say, to me, you know, you always notice the lady, because a lady floats into the room. And I've never been a floater, I’m more like a whirlwind. Many times, so I've always tried to channel that, especially when I get to go into spaces, spaces with community, I always remind myself before I walk through the door, that you know, I need to float, I need to move with grace, and I need to move with respect. And again, my Mum has always done that. And then also, I just love I love Brene Brown. Brene Brown, she's awesome. I think when I read her book, The Gifts of Imperfection. Just love reading the research. I have a very scientific kind of mechanical side of my brain and then I have a very creative, touchy-feely side. And I think you need that as an entrepreneur. So to read that and to help you break it down with it just makes me and helped me forget a lot of things that had happened within my life that I was holding on to.
Fiona Johnston 26:36
Wow, how powerful.
Fiona Johnston 26:40
So tell us how can the community watching this now, or watching on the replay? How can we support you. What's happening at Living Koko? What's sort of coming up? I think you have an event coming up in a few weeks. Yeah, tell us a bit more about where your products are and what's happening. So we can go and check them all out.
Fipe Preuss 27:04
On the 25th of Feb, we're going to be in New Zealand for the Moana Pacific rugby game. They're having a like a Pacific Island market at the rugby game. So anyone who's in New Zealand, come down and see me and my sister running that store. And then on the 3rd of March, we launch our non alcoholic cacao infused beer called Penina. So those that anything called Me Coco, Coco. Me Coco is an event that's part of Melbourne fashion festival. Yet we have partnered with an incredible brand called reviews, design, reviews, dyes, all those fabrics with natural dyes and how out of our no waste policy we had with as I was saying, you know, when we level up the machines to clean out a machine, it takes like 20 kilos to clean out a machine and as you put 20 kilos of chocolate through this machine, it just kind of gathers any metal specs and things like that, we will use different oil spills. So we had like 20 kilos sitting around and she's taken that to die some fabrics with so we're gonna have a great event could I know it, I'm really excited about it. So this event called me Coco is it's just about the really important role that could carry out as well as various Cillian like funghi has within our plant community. And just recognizing different founders is, I guess, a gateway to support many different plants and trees within our ecosystems. See, protecting with fun do not count Joby.
Fiona Johnston 29:28
Funghi I don't know fungi. Yeah.
Fipe Preuss 29:33
Was really trying to go deep - then I thought - narr! It'll be an amazing show. Yeah. blurb. Mara, who wrote a blurb is just so eloquent with her words about it. And then you just get me excited. I butcher it.
Fiona Johnston 29:53
Not at all. I think you've captured the essence. So couple of events coming up and where would We go to sort of have a look out or try some of your, some of your other products. So tell us where we can, what we can buy from you and how we can do that.
Fipe Preuss 30:11
Yes. So you can buy our products online, they can be sent out to you, or you can pick them up from our manufacturing base. And we're also in Brand whole foods, Good Times Cafe, a and many other stock. And your moment. I always love Head and Heart. Yeah, Head and Heart, is always my favourite. I'm off coffee. So I drink that twice a day. Within my smoothies, or my smoothies in the morning, and in the afternoon, evening. But even with this hot weather we've been making it with oat milk. And I love it.
Fiona Johnston 31:08
Yeah. And it's so amazing to see that the kind of more scientific base world is really catching up to what, you know, many elders have known for generations, that cacao and other fermented products are just so, so good for us. And, yeah, it can really become a very special part of somebody's day, which is great.
Fipe Preuss 31:31
Yeah, I totally agree. Food is not medicine, and I think respecting our bodies.
Fiona Johnston 31:42
Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me Fipe. I hope everyone who's been here has enjoyed us. Hopefully, the sound was coming through. Okay. And yeah, I just think that Living Koko and Fipe, and her team is such an amazing example of small business change in the world for the better. Even if Fipe is too humble to blow her own horn. I'm happy to blow it anytime. And yeah, you've never tasted cacao or drinking chocolate like this before in your life. You've got to get to the Living Koko website and get some for yourself. So thanks, everybody. And I'll have to now work out how to turn this off. Laughs.
Fipe Preuss 32:29
I just say, thank you so much, Fiona, don't hang up on me, girl, I just have to say thank you so much. Like it was with your guidance and support that we are, where we are. And I'm gonna blow your horn now. If it wasn't for you, and just reminding us that, that we you know, with everything that we do, we were looking at ourselves so small, only we were looking at ourselves as chocolate makers, when who we really were bean movers. The more beans we moved, the more financing back to the village and not just, it just completely changed my perspective on everything. And this is a number of years ago, that you planted that amazing seed within us. Yeah, it removed this need to just own my brand and only have some more on koko or connected with my brand. And it just, it just removed a whole bunch of ego from the space real early and made me get it right. You know, I am looking at the bigger picture but I'm trying to shove it bigger picture in the tiny little bag of Living Koko when this whole bigger picture can be activated. Bring everyone along for the journey. Did you know that we supply beans to chocolate makers, we you know, swap recipes. We were just really you know, no one's our competition. No one's our competition. I'm my own competition and it was because of your incredible wisdom.
Fiona Johnston 34:18
It's my absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Enjoy Fipe thanks.
Instagram Live chat between Fiona Johnston, Peach Business and Fipe Preuss, Living Koko. Recorded on Tue, Feb 16, 2023 7:00PM • Video length 34:30