Cocoa and chocolate companies often purchase cocoa directly from small-scale farmers in developing countries, so they need to track each batch of cocoa from the farm to the point of sale. The process usually starts with a cocoa buyer walking through the rainforest on foot, checking plots of cocao trees. He or she will then count the number of cocoa pods per tree and make a note of the plot number.
Once a buyer has identified each farmer's plot, he or she can use that information to track each cocoa crop throughout its life cycle. This means that chocolate companies will know when and where each bean was grown, sorted, dried, and eventually packaged for sale.