UPDATED / TCL::LIVE – The Past, Present & Future of Cacao?

By TheChocolateWire | a year ago | 4 min read

Original cacao tree image by Clay Gordon on the Finca Blanca Margarita in Puerto Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador

Episode 69 streams live from 12:00~13:00 EST Friday, Nov 25th. Updated to include galleries of photos shown during the live stream.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the multi-faceted topics of cacao for over twenty years, but more so than usual in the past five months. After eighteen months of no travel at all – and just one trip to a cocoa-producing country (Nigeria) in the first twenty-nine months since lockdowns started here in the US! – I visited three cocoa-producing countries in S America (Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador) within four months.

As a part of those travels I got to see traditional smallholder farming in and very technified farming in the province of Guayas, about an hour’s drive west from Guayaquil. While I did not get a chance to see it in person, Barry Callebaut’s “Farm of the Future” is in the same area.

Not only did I get a chance to see a number of different systems of cocoa farming, I had the good fortune to be able to sit in on a presentation by Dr Francisco Valdez, one of the lead researchers in the archaeological and anthropological work being done in the province of Zamora Chinchipe in southeastern Ecuador, about what they found there.

Coincidentally, shortly after leaving Ecuador I was a guest of Barry Callebaut at their 2nd Generation Chocolate launch – which is both forward-looking while at the same time a reflection of the past, rooted in the realities of the present day. While BC is talking about chocolate, one fundamental talking point is the need to think about cocoa differently from the ways they have been thinking about.

At the same time, fermented alternatives to cocoa have shown up again in recent chocolate news:

In this episode of TheChocolateLife::LIVE I will be exploring what I witnessed, read, and researched and how it may all tie together.

Galleries

In Bahia, Brazil – Sprouting fermentation sign at Fazenda Capela Velha; Fazenda Bonança

In Puerto Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador on the Finca Blanca Margarita. [T,R] Pedro Saavedra sent me this photo of the tree shown in the featured image. They are in the middle of harvest on the farm – this tree produced 124 pods!

Near Cerecita in Guayas, Ecuador, technified cacao farming in the dry forest – top row and bottom row left are on the Hacienda Victoria; bottom right is on the Hacienda del Alto.

Near Buena Fe in Los Rios, Ecuador – a smallholder farm and one of the largest covered fermentation centers I have personally seen under construction. The entire facility will, when complete, process an average of over 50MT/day across the entire year.

The future of cacao cannot be known, but some aspects of its future may be being determined – and we can see some of what that looks like – and so it makes sense to take a look at some current influences.

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