Beyond Good
March 9, 2026 / Photo: Courtesy of Beyond Good
Beyond Good is producing chocolate and vanilla products that celebrate their East African ingredients and the people who farm them.
Founder and CEO Tim McCollum first experienced Madagascar’s unique, unhybridized cocoa and vanilla products while working there for the Peace Corps post-college. He began Beyond Good years later, driven by wanderlust and the desire to build a better, less exploitative chocolate brand.
Within a conventional industry supply chain, farmers are often left with the least to gain because exporters, importers, and manufacturers manipulate sales and pocket most of the profits. McCollum sought to amend the system to support Madagascar’s cocoa and vanilla farmers while eliminating unnecessary middlemen. To do so, he set up a factory near the farmers and their products — a move that no other major chocolate manufacturer had ever attempted.
The system took years to establish, and McCollum says he’s still fine-tuning and facing challenges. But it has allowed him to make products that spotlight the delicious, diverse, and fully-traceable ingredients they contain. It has also allowed him to subvert the standards and achievement metrics that competitor chocolate brands use, opting instead to measure success by the improved incomes of the farmers he works with.
Beyond Good’s products range from distinctly-flavored chocolate bars, to locally-soured vanilla extract, powder, and beans. The brand also showcases the farmers it partners with on its website and the number of trees/acres they steward.
McCollum is working on opening up a new origin location in Uganda. He hopes that Beyond Good’s ideology will continue to reach more consumers as the mindful brand expands.
“I guess if we had one wish, it would be that the people buying Beyond Good because it’s the best quality chocolate on the shelf also knew how groundbreaking our impact is,” he explained. “And that the people buying Beyond Good because of the mission and impact knew how differentiated the product quality and flavor are.”
More about Beyond Good can be found here.
