• Sergi Codonyer, Business Sciences alumnus, social entrepreneur, Managing Director and founder of Organic Africa Chocolate (Freetown, Sierra Leone)

Sergi Codonyer Perique holds a three-year degree in Business Sciences from UPF and is class of 1996, the university’s third graduating class and ‘the one that inaugurated the Ciutadella campus’, he says. He has many fond memories of UPF, ‘an institution that was learning alongside the people studying there: it was a symbiosis of organic growth and joint learning’.

He first came to Africa 11 years ago. In 2016, he founded Organic Africa Chocolate in order to produce organic chocolate in the West African country of Sierra Leone. But to make it a reality, he first had to do some preliminary work. ‘I have trained 400 farmers to grow organic cocoa and I have a factory to produce exceptional artisanal chocolate’, he says.

He explains that the end result is more than a product, due to the conditions surrounding it. ‘Our chocolate is produced entirely in Africa. We generate investment, jobs, better education and self-sufficiency for our communities. We believe that real development in Africa comes from our work, from creating products like this, not from foreign aid.’

Sergi says life in Sierra Leone is complicated and that infrastructure is scarce to non-existent. ‘Sometimes (during the rainy season), it can take three hours to cover a distance of two kilometres. Many places lack mobile coverage, which makes it hard to communicate with farmers. On a material level, there is a lack of everything; on the human level, they have it all.’ 

“On a material level, there is a lack of everything; on the human level, they have it all”

He believes in the social and regenerative role of these types of projects. ‘In sub-Saharan Africa some two million children work on cocoa plantations as slaves. If we have managed to bring decent conditions to the most underprivileged communities of Sierra Leone through business development, it is time to do it in the rest of West Africa too.’

Sergi has no plans to return to Catalonia; he feels completely fulfilled by his current work. ‘Projects like this give meaning to life. Anyone who sees it as a career opportunity will probably suffer. But anyone who sees it as a life project will enjoy good adventures’, he says.

Before his project in Sierra Leone, Sergi was already familiar with Africa. In 2009, he moved to Ghana to oversee Coca-Cola’s operations in the country. Two years later, the multinational put him in charge of communication and PR for thirteen countries on the continent. After finishing his degree at UPF, but before accepting his first position at Coca-Cola, he worked as a consultant in various European countries and was an expert in implementing dashboards.

Photo gallery

Sergi Codonyer with the work team in Sierra Leone; with Elena Barraquer's cataract surgery team at Freetown Hospital (photos 3, 4 and 5); patients of the Barraquer clinic (photo 7), and ingredients of the chocolate and final product (photos 6 and 8)