Dear Olivia,
You told us three things stand between Ubud Raw and the American market: you have no one selling there, nowhere to hold stock, and no US company. Hiring your way out of that is expensive and slow. So we would like to propose something simpler — let us be your arm in the United States. We already run shipping and fulfilment out of Los Angeles for our own coffee. Your cacao can use the same rail.
This document sets out exactly what we would do, what it would cost you, and how we would be paid. Neither of the two main proposals asks you for money up front.
1. The three things this fixes
Everything below rests on one mechanical change: your product crosses the Pacific once, in bulk, instead of one parcel at a time. Three good things follow from that, and the third is the one we are most enthusiastic about.
Your shipping cost collapses
Small parcels from Bali cost around $112 a kilo. One consolidated shipment to Los Angeles costs $10–16 a kilo. That is a sevenfold cut on a first 50 kg shipment, and better than tenfold once you are sending larger volumes — the same cacao, in the same box.
Your customers get it in days
Stock already sitting in Los Angeles reaches most of the country in two to three days, or next-day by express. Your buyers stop waiting weeks and stop dealing with customs on their own doorstep. For a wholesale account planning a ceremony around a delivery date, that certainty matters as much as price.
We can be personal about it
Because we pack every box by hand in Los Angeles, we can include a handwritten note on your stationery with each order — from Ubud Raw, to that customer, by name. That is the kind of thing a large fulfilment warehouse cannot do and a small one should.
2. What "your US arm" literally means
Here is the actual division of labour, function by function.
| The function | Who does it today | Who does it under this arrangement |
|---|---|---|
| Making the cacao | Ubud Raw, Bali | Ubud Raw, Bali — unchanged, and we never touch it |
| Finding US buyers | Nobody | Us. Named outreach to ceremony facilitators, studios, retreat centres and specialty grocers — plus an announcement campaign to your own existing US contacts |
| Answering a US enquiry | Nobody, same day | Us. A WhatsApp and email desk that answers immediately, with a human in the loop — see below |
| Holding stock in America | Nobody | Us — temperature-controlled to your specification (§7) |
| Getting boxes to US customers | Bali post, ~$112/kg | Us. Domestic FedEx out of Los Angeles — about $10 for a retail parcel, around $30 for a 10 kg wholesale case — hand-packed |
| US entity, FDA, sales tax | Doesn't exist | Us, through Chicago Accounting Inc — if and when you want it |
| Owning the brand | Ubud Raw | Ubud Raw. Your name stays on the front. This is not negotiable from our side either |
| Owning the customer relationship | — | Yours. We are the arm, not the head |
The enquiry desk, in detail
A wholesale enquiry that waits three days is a lost account, and neither of us is sitting at a desk in California at 9am Pacific. So we propose to run it honestly rather than pretend otherwise:
- A WhatsApp and email assistant answers immediately, at any hour, with pricing, lead times, minimum orders and product detail you have approved in advance.
- It says plainly that it is an assistant, not a person — and tells the enquirer when a human will follow up. Nobody enjoys discovering that afterwards.
- Anyone who wants a human gets patched through to a real person on our team, or called back within one business day.
Every conversation is logged, so you can see exactly what is being asked and what is being answered in your name.
↑ Go to Top3. Why now
| Tailwind | Detail | What it means for Ubud Raw |
|---|---|---|
| 0% US tariff on Indonesian cocoa | The February 2026 US–Indonesia Reciprocal Tariff Agreement exempts cocoa, coffee and spices from the 19% base tariff — 1,819 zero-duty tariff lines. | Your Peruvian and Ecuadorian competitors do not all have this. It is a structural cost advantage, and it is locked in by treaty rather than by anyone's goodwill. |
| Ceremonial cacao is a live US category | The leading Amazon listing moves roughly 20,000 units a month. The category has established brands and hundreds of wholesale accounts behind them. | You do not have to educate this market. You need distribution into a boom that is already running — and "single-origin Bali, raw, organic" is a position none of the American leaders can claim. |
| The rupiah has weakened | Roughly Rp 16,500 to Rp 17,800 per US dollar in recent months. | Your dollar-paying customers get more cacao per dollar than they did in the spring. That window is open now. |
4. The economics — your numbers against the US market
4a. What you told us
| Metric | IDR | ≈ USD |
|---|---|---|
| Ceremonial cacao — your wholesale price | Rp 500,000 / kg | $28 / kg |
| Ceremonial cacao — Bali retail | Rp 665,000 / kg | $37 / kg |
| Your EU distributor's retail price | — | €95 (~$103) / kg |
| Chocolate bar retail, Bali | Rp 77,000 / bar | $4.33 / bar |
| Current EU volume | 300–500 kg per month | |
| Direct-to-US shipping, small parcels | ~Rp 2,000,000 / kg | ~$112 / kg |
4b. What the same product sells for in America
| Comparison | Price | Per kg |
|---|---|---|
| US category leader — retail | $49 / lb | ~$108 |
| US category leader — wholesale tiers | $22–33 / lb | $48–73 |
| Mid-market competitor — retail entry price | from $19.50 / lb | ~$43 |
| Typical Amazon 1 lb ceremonial listings | $25–45 / lb | $55–99 |
You are currently selling at $28 a kilo into a market where the equivalent wholesale price is $48–73. That is simply the difference between selling in Bali and selling in California. Closing it is most of what we are proposing.
4c. Freight, honestly
| Shipment size | Freight per kg | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 10 kg — roughly what you ship now | ~$114 | Small-parcel express. Close to the ~$112 you quoted us, from an independent rate check — which is reassuring, because it means we are both looking at the same problem. |
| 50 kg | ~$16 | Estimate for a small first shipment. |
| 100 kg | ~$15.60 | Quoted tier. |
| 300 kg | ~$9.60 | Quoted tier. |
Note the shape of that curve. The saving from 50 kg to 100 kg is almost nothing; the saving from 100 kg to 300 kg is nearly 40%. Consolidation is where the economics live, and it improves the more you send at once. We would rather tell you that plainly than quote you one flattering number.
These are indicative figures pending a forwarder's quote, which we are obtaining now.
↑ Go to Top5. Proposal one — wholesale accounts, with no stock at risk
Our main recommendation You risk nothing
This is the business you already run. In Europe you sell 300–500 kg a month through a distributor: they order, you ship, you are paid. We are proposing the identical arrangement in a country where you currently have nobody. You would not have to learn a new model, front any capital, or send stock anywhere before it is sold.
Who actually buys ceremonial cacao in America
Supermarket buyers are the wrong target here. The volume sits somewhere much closer to your European customer:
| Who buys | Why they matter |
|---|---|
| Cacao ceremony facilitators | Cacao is the centre of the event they sell. They buy every month, and they do not choose on price alone. |
| Yoga, breathwork and sound studios | Same audience, same ritual framing. Concentrated in California, Colorado, New York and Texas. |
| Retreat centres and teacher trainings | Larger volumes, booked seasons in advance, very loyal once approved. |
| Premium natural grocers | Erewhon-tier stores and local co-operatives. Slower to win, but they establish the brand. |
What one account is worth to you
A typical account buys 5–30 kg a month at around $60 a kilo delivered. Because your economics depend on how much moves in a single shipment, here are both realistic volumes rather than only the flattering one:
| Per kg, delivered to a US account | 10 accounts ≈100 kg/month | 30 accounts ≈300 kg/month |
|---|---|---|
| What the account pays | $60.00 | $60.00 |
| Your cost of goods | −$20.00 | −$20.00 |
| Consolidated freight Bali → Los Angeles | −$15.60 | −$9.60 |
| Domestic parcel and hand-packing from LA about $6 to pick and pack, plus around $30 FedEx on a 10 kg case | −$3.60 | −$3.60 |
| Our commission, first year, 10% | −$6.00 | −$6.00 |
| Your net, per kg | $14.80 | $20.80 |
| Your net per kg selling to your EU distributor $28 wholesale less $20 cost of goods | $8.00 | $8.00 |
Nearly double your European margin per kilo at ten accounts, and better than two and a half times it once volume consolidates. Ten accounts is roughly $72,000 a year of revenue to you, about $17,760 of it net. Thirty accounts is around $216,000, at a better margin per kilo. The model grows by adding names, not by adding capital.
How the shipping actually works
Orders are collected and moved to Los Angeles in a single consolidated shipment each month, then split and sent domestically within days of landing. You ship in bulk, invoice against orders already placed, and hold nothing speculatively.
This is deliberately not drop-shipping from Bali. At 10 kg a time the international freight is around $114 a kilo, which would swallow the entire $60 price. Consolidation is the whole mechanism.
Being straight about the drawback
Wholesale accounts take months to land. Outreach begins immediately, but a facilitator who replies in September may not place a first order until November, and there will be a stretch early on where there is activity to report but no revenue.
That is the honest trade for a route where neither of us has money at risk. It is also exactly why we have written §6 — something that moves in weeks, running alongside.
6. Proposal two — stock in Los Angeles
Runs alongside proposal one Two ways to structure it
If you want product moving in weeks rather than months, the fastest sales are not new customers at all. You already have US buyers who pay $112 a kilo in shipping and keep coming back. They are not prospects — they are customers. Put stock in Los Angeles, tell your own list it is now available without the international shipping, and that converts quickly.
We suggest starting at 50 kg, not 200. It is a small, testable quantity that restocks in weeks, and if it sells out quickly that is far better evidence than a large consignment sitting still.
Route A — you ship it, we hold it and sell it Our suggestion
You send 50 kg to Los Angeles and retain ownership of it. We store it correctly, market it, hand-pack and ship every order, and pay you as it sells. Nothing changes hands until a customer buys.
| Route A — per 50 kg | Amount |
|---|---|
| You receive, as stock sells $55 per kg on a $95 US retail price | $2,750 |
| Your cost of goods | −$1,000 |
| Freight to Los Angeles | −$800 |
| Your net | $950 |
You keep the larger share of the retail price — $55 of $95 — because you are the one carrying the stock. We fund storage, hand-packing, payment processing and marketing out of the remainder. Your exposure if it sells slowly is your cost of goods and the freight, and the product does not spoil in our care.
Route B — we buy it from you outright
If you would rather not send stock on those terms, we will simply buy it. You invoice us for 50 kg at your normal wholesale price, we pay on the purchase order, and we cover the freight. Whether it sells is then entirely our problem.
| Route B — per 50 kg | Amount |
|---|---|
| We pay you on the purchase order Rp 25,000,000 at Rp 500,000/kg | $1,404 |
| Your cost of goods | −$1,000 |
| Freight to Los Angeles | Paid by us |
| Your net, immediately | $404 |
7. How your product would be stored — and one thing to confirm
Your product page states: "Store in a cool and dark place… best result is somewhere between 5 °C – 20 °C. Keep away from heat and direct sunlight. Keep away from strong odors. Do not freeze."
Can you confirm that 5–20 °C is the correct range — and tell us which items it applies to? Your range is not one product: the Fresh Raw Chocolate line needs refrigeration, the bean-to-bar range wants 5–20 °C, and beans, nibs, powder, cacao butter and coconut sugar are a different question again. We would rather build around your specification, item by item, than around a figure we read on a web page.
What we are doing about it
We have taken your 5–20 °C figure seriously rather than assuming a cool room would do. Los Angeles in August is genuinely hot, and ordinary American "climate-controlled" storage is held at 13–27 °C — the top of that band is above your ceiling. So it is not good enough.
For the first shipment we are buying a dedicated compressor-cooled cabinet that holds 5–18 °C — inside your stated range, with margin at the top of the band where the risk actually sits. We estimate it at roughly $700–900 to buy plus about $5–10 a month to run at Los Angeles electricity rates. We mention the figure not to claim credit for it but so you know the commitment is specific: your cacao gets its own temperature-controlled space, not a corner of a warehouse that is probably fine.
One detail worth stating, because it is a common and expensive mistake: this will be a compressor unit, not a thermoelectric one. Thermoelectric coolers do not cool to a set temperature — they cool relative to the room, so in a warm space they simply fail to reach your range while running constantly.
As volume grows we would move to a food-grade third-party warehouse with proper temperature control, pest management and food handling permits. We are pricing that now and will share the quote with you.
| Storage option | Meets 5–20 °C? | Our view |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary climate-controlled self-storage | Almost — 13–27 °C | Tops out above your ceiling and has no humidity control. Acceptable for dry goods, not for bars. |
| Dedicated cooled cabinet | Yes — 5–18 °C | What we are buying for the first shipment. Right for a 50 kg quantity. |
| Food-grade third-party warehouse | Yes | Where we go as volume grows. Solves temperature, pests and permits together. |
| Hold almost nothing | Yes, by avoidance | Ship against confirmed orders and hold days of stock rather than months. This is proposal one, and storage stops being a question at all. |
Four more things we would like your view on
| Question | Why we ask |
|---|---|
| How do you store it today? | You already ship to US customers. Whatever you do now is more useful to us than anything we can model from the outside. |
| What is the real shelf life, and at what temperature? | The bar page says two years from production. We would like to know what that becomes in a warmer month. |
| How is pest management handled at origin? | Stored cacao has a well-known moth problem worldwide, and the standard fumigation treatment would cost you your organic certification. We would rather follow your practice than invent one. |
| Would smaller, more frequent shipments suit you better? | Less stock sitting means less storage risk for us and less capital tied up for you. It may simply be the better arrangement for both sides. |
8. What else we can do for you
None of these need deciding on Friday. They are the rest of what an arm does, once the first shipment is moving.
An announcement campaign to the customers you already have No fee on the first campaign
What we would do: with your permission and your contact list, we would run a proper announcement by email and WhatsApp to your existing US customers and enquirers — the same cacao, now without the international shipping. Then the follow-on flows: a reminder at day 30 (a kilo of ceremonial cacao lasts roughly four to six weeks, which is close to perfect reorder timing), abandoned-cart recovery, and an optional monthly subscription at a 10% saving.
How we would run it: through Zoho Campaigns, so that every open, click and reply is measured. That matters beyond this one campaign — it tells us which language, which products and which framing actually work on American buyers, and we would share all of it with you.
What it costs you: nothing for the first campaign. The email platform itself is roughly $50–100 a month at your list size, and we are happy to run it on our account initially.
What we would need: your US contact list — customers, past enquiries, wholesale leads, café visitors who left an address. This is the single highest-value thing you could hand us on Friday.
Named outreach to wholesale accounts Commission only
We build a named target list — ceremony facilitators, breathwork and sound studios, retreat centres, teacher trainings and specialty grocers, California first — and work it systematically rather than hoping for inbound interest. "Single-origin Bali, raw, organic, tariff-free" is a strong opening line into that inbox.
What it costs you: nothing, beyond samples. Twenty 200 g samples is a trivial quantity and by far the best conversion tool we have once stock is in Los Angeles.
A shared Amazon and Google advertising test Costs and gross margin split between us
What we would do: a capped test of $500–1,000 a month across Google Shopping and Amazon Sponsored Products, targeting "ceremonial cacao", "cacao ceremony" and "sugar-free hot chocolate". The category leader moves around 20,000 units a month; even a small share of that is meaningful. Full Amazon fulfilment would wait until the advertising proves it converts.
How we propose to structure it: rather than charging you a management fee, we split both the cost and the resulting gross margin. We put in half the advertising budget, you put in half, and we divide the gross margin on what it sells. If the test does not work, we have lost the same as you. We think that is a fairer arrangement than billing you a percentage whatever happens.
What it costs you: $250–500 a month, capped, cancellable at any time. Certainty of cost is usually what matters most about American advertising.
"Bali Mornings" — a co-branded bundle We own the box; you are paid wholesale
What it is: a gift and starter box — IndoJack pods, Ubud Raw ceremonial cacao 200 g, and a card telling the single-origin Bali story. Priced around $59–79, margin-rich, and a natural Q4 holiday product. Each brand's customers meet the other's product, so the cost of finding a customer is shared by physics rather than by accounting.
Where it could sell: our US channels, but also directly on your own website, and through your existing channels in Indonesia for US-bound customers — visitors to the café who want it shipped home, for instance. We would supply and fulfil the US side either way.
On branding and your trademark: both names appear on the box — this is explicitly co-branded, not a white label, and we would not propose otherwise. Your individual products always carry your mark alone. We would want a short written licence for the use of your name and marks on the bundle packaging, which is straightforward to draft and which also strengthens your position when you register the Ubud Raw trade name in the United States. Chicago Accounting Inc can handle that registration for you if you would like.
Creator and community marketing $500–1,000 a month while running
We would gift product to fifteen to twenty micro-creators in the cacao ceremony, breathwork and morning-ritual niche — the 10,000 to 100,000 follower range, where people post for product and a modest fee — and reach into the large Indonesian community in California. Your packaging is beautiful; it photographs itself.
Every visitor to your Bali café is also a potential advocate. A card in each order — "tag us from Bali, and take 15% off your first Los Angeles-shipped order at home" — costs almost nothing and connects the two markets.
What it costs you: roughly $500 of product for gifting, plus optionally $200–400 each for the strongest three to five creators. Considerably less than the US sales person you thought you would need.
9. How we are paid
You should know exactly how we make money on this, so here is every line of it. Our two entities are Chicago Accounting Inc in the United States and PT Nicholas Levenstein dan Rekan in Indonesia. Between them they hold the US company and the Indonesian export permit, and we are completing the remaining US import registrations now — we will tell you the moment they are issued rather than let you assume they already are.
| What we do | What we are paid | When |
|---|---|---|
| Find you a wholesale account | 10% of that account's purchases in the first twelve months, then 5% for as long as it keeps buying | Only when the account actually buys |
| Hold and ship your stock (Route A) | The difference between the $55/kg we pay you and the US retail price, out of which we fund storage, hand-packing, payment processing and marketing | Only as stock sells |
| Buy your stock (Route B) | Whatever margin we can make reselling it — and the loss if we cannot | We pay you on the purchase order |
| The announcement campaign | Nothing for the first campaign. Optionally $300–500 a month afterwards if you want us running the calendar | Monthly, cancellable |
| Advertising test | No fee. We each fund half the budget and split the gross margin it produces | Monthly, capped, cancellable |
| The "Bali Mornings" bundle | We own that box and keep its margin, and pay you your normal wholesale price for the cacao in it | You are paid per bundle produced |
| Creator and community marketing | $500–1,000 a month while a campaign is running, or folded into the above if you would rather not carry a separate line | Monthly, cancellable, only if you want it |
| US entity, FDA and tax registration | A one-time professional fee through Chicago Accounting Inc, quoted in advance | Only if you ask us to do it |
| The principle | Almost everything we earn depends on selling your product. If it does not sell, we are not paid. | |
10. What we would need from you
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Confirmation of the 5–20 °C storage range, item by item | The one we most need. It determines how we store your product and what it costs to do properly. |
| Your US contact list — customers, enquiries, wholesale leads | So we can announce by email and WhatsApp that your cacao now ships from Los Angeles. This is the fastest revenue available to either of us. |
| Your cost sheet per product | You mentioned it on our last call. It lets us check every margin figure in this document against your real numbers rather than our estimates. |
| Past US order history | So the first shipment is sized to demand we can already see, rather than to a guess. |
| An introduction to your existing US reseller | We would rather work with them than around them. A reference and an introduction is plenty — a shared WhatsApp or email group would be the easiest way to keep all three of us aligned. |
| Shelf life and pest-management practice | So we follow what already works at origin instead of inventing our own approach. |
What we will have ready
| What | When |
|---|---|
| Forwarder quotes, Bali to Los Angeles, at 50 / 100 / 300 kg, air and sea | Within days |
| A named list of the first fifty US wholesale targets, California first | Within days — we will show you the list, not just describe it |
| Draft announcement campaign copy for your existing customers | Ready to review as soon as you are comfortable sharing the list |
| A food-grade warehouse quote for when volume grows | Shortly, and we will share it openly |
| Trade name and registration steps and costs, should you want them | Outlined by Chicago Accounting Inc |
We are looking forward to Friday.
Sincerely,
Nicholas Levenstein
IndoJack · Chicago Accounting Inc · PT Nicholas Levenstein dan Rekan
Figures converted at approximately Rp 17,800 per US dollar and should be re-checked at the time of any agreement. Freight rates, warehouse pricing and storage running costs are indicative estimates pending formal quotes, which we are obtaining and will share. US market pricing is drawn from published category data rather than from Ubud Raw. Storage guidance quoted from the Ubud Raw product page and FAQ. Tariff treatment per the US–Indonesia Reciprocal Tariff Agreement, February 2026.