Conscious Business Lessons from Mexico
Tomorrow we fly out of Mexico, on our way to Australia via a yoga course in Thailand. A large shipment of our beloved Mexican cacao is also on its way, and should be on sale in a couple of weeks.
Mexico is very dear to us. Rose and I met seven years ago in a tiny fishing village on the coast of Oaxaca, only to discover on our first date that our parents live ten minutes’ walk apart in Sydney.
Mexico is a land of welcome and music. It is the place where the sea is silken and the mountains smell like pine. It is a country of wedding marches and dance classes in the park. It is a land of tiny dogs in jackets and fathers who cuddle their kids. It is a magical place for us. It is the place we fell in love with cacao.
We perhaps give Mexico more attention than we ought to. To a great extent, we've smoothed out supply chains for our Karkar, Daintree, Peruvian, and Solomon Islands cacaos. Only Mexican remains unreliable, but we seem to love it more because it is our problem child. We know that delays and optimistic promises are part of doing business in Mexico, but so is hospitality and friendship. We learn to take it all as one.
Mexico, in its way, has taught us a lot about business. It is perhaps not the first country that pops to mind when one thinks of innovative commerce (with reason), but it does, all the same, have its lessons to teach:
1. Community.
A Mexican shop is more a family than a business. Children wait tables, cousins work the till, uncles and aunts are the best customers, grandma and grandpa sit in the next room watching TV. There are always friends gathering - the man who works next door is always dropping by for a chat. Customers walk in to a home, not a shop.
It is rare to visit the same place three times without the owner asking your name. Five times and inevitably someone asks if kangaroos are violent. Seven times and you’ve been invited to a dance recital. In Mexico, business follows the rules of family. We would like Soma to do the same. We want our customers to feel known and valued, and part of something good. We are genuinely grateful (and always pleasantly surprised) that so many people love Soma. We want to find ways to show our appreciation that aren’t just gimmicky and commercial. It’s hard to do that in e-commerce, though social media helps. We think a good place to start is in how we treat our staff.
2. Pilón.
Pilón is the Mexican practice of giving a little extra to show thanks. If you go to a grocery store and buy a week’s worth of vegetables, inevitably the grocer will pop you a free bag of grapes or a couple of mangoes. Pilón is, first and foremost, an act of friendship, but it also has the effect of keeping a business young: it stops business from being an endless harvest, and plants new shoots. It is a Mercurial touch that stops work from getting too Saturnine.
3. The Grillo Effect.
Our local store in Mexico is called El Grillo (‘The Grasshopper’). There are a dozen similar stores in our town, each selling the same things at the same prices. El Grillo stands out because its owner innovates: he’s always bringing in new cheeses or olive oil, or selling sourdough bread made by his neighbour. We have learned to trust his judgement, and know that some of the money we spend with him goes towards buying new stuff for him to sell us next time. It becomes a cycle in which everyone wins.
It is rare to visit the same place three times without the owner asking your name. Five times and inevitably someone asks if kangaroos are violent. Seven times and you’ve been invited to a dance recital. In Mexico, business follows the rules of family. We would like Soma to do the same. We want our customers to feel known and valued, and part of something good. We are genuinely grateful (and always pleasantly surprised) that so many people love Soma. We want to find ways to show our appreciation that aren’t just gimmicky and commercial. It’s hard to do that in e-commerce, though social media helps. We think a good place to start is in how we treat our staff.
2. Pilón.
Pilón is the Mexican practice of giving a little extra to show thanks. If you go to a grocery store and buy a week’s worth of vegetables, inevitably the grocer will pop you a free bag of grapes or a couple of mangoes. Pilón is, first and foremost, an act of friendship, but it also has the effect of keeping a business young: it stops business from being an endless harvest, and plants new shoots. It is a Mercurial touch that stops work from getting too Saturnine.
3. The Grillo Effect.
Our local store in Mexico is called El Grillo (‘The Grasshopper’). There are a dozen similar stores in our town, each selling the same things at the same prices. El Grillo stands out because its owner innovates: he’s always bringing in new cheeses or olive oil, or selling sourdough bread made by his neighbour. We have learned to trust his judgement, and know that some of the money we spend with him goes towards buying new stuff for him to sell us next time. It becomes a cycle in which everyone wins.
At Soma, we hope to do something similar. We feel that, of the five best cacaos for sale in Australia right now, we probably sell four.
Already in 2025 we’ve secured samples from four new farms as we hunt for our next amazing origin (we dearly want to make it five from five!). We want to continue sourcing the very best cacao, and, as we can afford bigger and bigger shipments, we want to sell it at better and better prices.
We’re also hoping, as we expand into new products, to build a brand people trust. We go to El Grillo because we’re confident the new kombucha will be worth trying. We hope, as Soma expands into products like superfoods and portable blenders, that our customers can trust us the same way.
We’re also hoping, as we expand into new products, to build a brand people trust. We go to El Grillo because we’re confident the new kombucha will be worth trying. We hope, as Soma expands into products like superfoods and portable blenders, that our customers can trust us the same way.
We’re sad to leave Mexico, but we’re also excited to come home. We hope to bring a little Mexico back with us.
With chilli guajillo and a pinch of panela,
Rose, Alistair, and the team at Soma Cacao
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