Pathways to Development: Incentives and Barriers in Micro and Small Business Innovation

The Amazon is a leader in Brazilian cocoa farming, accounting for more than half of the country's production, even though the plant was historically sown in Amazonian soils in the first place. Currently, the production chain shows clearer signs of verticalization in the North region, with the presence of chocolate factories that not only export the fruits, but also transform them into final products, maintaining family relationships and sharing traditional knowledge, from the harvest to the chocolate bar for the final consumer. The main objective of this work was to make a relationship between aspects of value creation of small chocolate companies with their presence in cooperatives. To this end, semi-structured questionnaires were applied at the "Chocolat Amazônia 2023" event, which exposed regional chocolate companies. It was evidenced that the companies are small, maintain a family business model and cooperate, in some way, with other companies.