A Season of Harvest and New Beginnings at Finca Chocolat
As we step into another vibrant season at Finca Chocolat, our team finds itself split between two vital phases of cacao cultivation: harvesting and planting.
In the fields, the majority of our crew is carefully harvesting ripe cacao pods. Unlike most fruits, cacao doesn’t ripen all at once. Each pod on the tree matures at its own pace, requiring ongoing attention and multiple passes through the orchard over the coming months. It’s meticulous work, but it ensures only the ripest, highest-quality pods make their way into our fermentation and drying systems.
Meanwhile, back at the nursery, the first signs of life for our 2025 cacao seedlings are beginning to emerge. These young plants are nurtured with great care by our nursery team. Each seedling represents the future of our farm—genetically selected from the most productive trees at Finca Chocolat and started in a mix designed to promote strong root systems.
These seedlings will remain in the nursery until the fall of 2025, at which point they’ll be transplanted to areas of the farm that have been thoughtfully prepared for their long-term development. Though it takes five years for these trees to fully mature, we expect to see their first pods in just 3–4 years.
This is part of an ongoing effort to reforest and revitalize land previously cleared for cattle. Each year we plant 15,000 cacao trees alongside 5,000 native hardwoods, a practice we will continue for the next 4–5 years until all usable land at Finca Chocolat has been brought into production.
With every harvest and every seedling, we move one step closer to our vision: a thriving, regenerative agroforestry system that produces exceptional cacao while restoring the ecological balance of southern Belize.
