Philippine Cacao Makes Waves Abroad

Joseph Guerrero in Ang Pinoy Stories

Sep 19, 20192 min Read

You may have heard of Theobroma Cacao, the botanical name of cacao. It produces big pods with 40 to 50 beans inside that are processed into chocolate. Many Filipinos will be taking notice of this tree for various reasons as a number of Filipinos are determined to showcase the fruit and the tree to the world. Let’s meet them.

Jose Saguban. The farmer from Paquibato District, Davao City will compete in the 2019 International Chocolate Awards in France in October 2019. Saguban bested four other cacao farmers from Davao.  He will compete with 49 cacao farmers all over the world in the said competition. Saguban is just one of the many cacao farmers from the local farming community in Davao that is supported by Auro.

Auro. The name of this Filipino company is a play on the words Au and Oro, both refer to gold. Its Calamba, Laguna factory is equipped with the latest European technology to produce excellent chocolates. It empowers cacao farmers through a fair partnership system that includes educating them and buying their quality beans at 10%–30% above market price. Visit their website (http://www.aurochocolate.com) and order their fine quality chocolate bars.

Puentespina Farm. What is a trip to Davao without a visit to the Malagos Chocolate factory? The Davao-based farm produces the famous Malagos Chocolates and the owners are credited with revitalizing the cacao industry in the Malagos and nearby areas. The farm received an award this year from the Heirloom Cacao Preservation (an initiative of Fine Chocolate Industry Association, an international group of chocolate professionals) and became the first cacao farm in the Philippines to receive such a distinction.

Dalareich. Bohol’s own tableya and chocolate maker wants to put Bohol and the Philippines on the chocolate map. Along with Auro, Dalareich bagged a Gold for its tableya at the 2019 Academy of Chocolate Awards in London. It competed against 1500 entries from 46 countries worldwide.

Louise Mabulo. Young and enthusiastic Louise is a chef from Camarines Sur and formed a social venture—The Cacao Project—that helped local farmers bounce back from typhoon damages by intercropping typhoon-resilient cacao trees with short-term crops. The harvest from the cacao trees will provide another source of income for the farmers as Louise looks into processing the beans into chocolate in the future. For this remarkable project, she was selected by the United Nations Environment Programme as an advocate of climate change in the Asia Pacific and received a Young Champions of the Earth Prize.

The Philippines is not a major cacao producing country. Cocoa beans produce was not even 8,000 metric tons in 2018 and a fifth of the produce came from the Davao region. In comparison, Indonesia produces almost half a million metric tons and Ivory Coast produces one million metric tons.

Typhoon-resilient trees that produce (technically) chocolate—this seems to be a perfect entrepreneurial goal. Sweet! Know more about cacao at https://www.chocolate.org/blogs/chocolate-blog/about-the-cacao-tree.


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