Our Vision
It is difficult to live in Belize without coming to love the Belizean people. On the whole, they are some of the most genuine and authentic people one can hope to meet. It is also difficult to live in Belize without realizing the lack of opportunity for so many.
While Finca Chocolat is a for-profit company our motivation is not solely financial. We strive to improve our community and the environment while producing exceptional agricultural products for our customers.
You can read more about our social and environmental impact in Field Notes but in brief, we achieve this by: offering steady employment in an area without many employers; paying above average wages with benefits; training and promoting from within whenever possible; supporting the local community and especially neighboring schools; donating produce to a children’s feeding program; reforesting land previously clearcut - which greatly increases biodiversity in the area and serves as an example of an alternate methodology to slash-and-burn agriculture for neighboring farms; and sequestering significant amounts of carbon through our planting and biochar programs.
Though our goals go beyond a good return for our owners if you are considering investing with us rest assured that we are proven capitalists and proceed accordingly. At the end of the day, profitability is what enables Finca Chocolat to do more than simply make money. Please reach out if you would like to learn more.
Major Milestones in the history of finca chocolat
- December 2015
Purchased Finca Chocolat
Much of the 515 acres Finca Chocolat is situated on had been cleared in the 1990s and used as a cattle ranch. Over time the ranch went into decline and the owner returned to the United States. Being local to the area we knew the history and saw the potential to revitalize this land.
- 2016
Staffing, Nursery & Field Prep.
Our first year was all about logistics, sourcing, setting up our nursery, and staffing. With few suppliers and the Belizean love of bureaucracy, this was more of a challenge than most would ever appreciate.
- 2017 - 2020
Cacao Focused
These years our team focused on germinating, caring for and planting tens of thousands of cacao saplings in our nursery, moving them to the fields when ready and then nurturing them through the years. This work is not glamorous but ensures that we oversee every tree from germination to production of cacao pods. While it is not explicitly stated in each point below we germinate and plant 15,000 cacao trees annually and will continue to do so until all available acreage is fully utilized.
- 2019
Fermentation & Drying Facilities
As our trees started producing we built an onsite tiered wooden box fermentation facility and a solar drying house and began to refine our post-harvest protocols.
- 2020
First Local Cacao Sales
While cacao takes 5 years to reach full production 2020 was a turning point for Finca Chocolat with the sale of our first cacao in Belize. The farm also saw a leadership shift at the end of 2020 with David Santilli taking over as Managing Director.
- 2021
Cacao Exports & Agroforestry Focus
Fermenting cacao is as much of an art as a science and we invested heavily in improving our post-harvest protocols in 2021. This allowed us to improve quality and export our cacao to N America. We also shifted our plan to an agroforestry focus and contracted to buy 4,000 Cordia Alliodora trees (locally known as Salmwood) for the following season.
- 2022
Lemongrass, Vanilla, Tumeric, Cardamom, & Hardwoods
Following our focus on high-value non-perishable products we started test crops of Lemongrass, Vanilla, Tumeric, and Cardamom at Finca Chocolat in 2022. These crops allow us to utilize the understory in our agroforestry model to maximize return per acre. In addition to the 15,000 cacao we plant annually, we also planted 4,000 Salmwood trees in 2022.
- 2023
Expansion, Investment & Outreach
2023 was a busy year with significant changes at Finca Chocolat. In addition to planting 15,000 new cacao trees, we planted another 4,000 Salmwood, 1,000 Rosewood, 500 Barbajalote, and 100 Mahogany trees.
We also expanded our Tumeric, Vanilla, Lemongrass, and Cardamom cultivation and reached new export markets for our cacao in Asia.
We produced our first batches of cocoa butter, cocoa powder, cacao nibs, and couverture in 2023 and when we have the funds to do so we will scale up these product offerings.
On the investment front, we launched our 506(c) Private Placement offering in partnership with Caribbean Capital Group and brought in our first investors via that mechanism.
Finally, we partnered with 20+ farmers from southern Belize to purchase and process their wet cacao which we then sold in addition to our own cacao. - 2024
New Facilities & Forging Ahead
Increasing cacao production means greater demand for post-harvest processing facilities and Finca Chocolat is heavily investing in PP&E in 2024. By the Fall of 2024, our new and larger fermentation facility and an additional and larger drying house will be complete. These infrastructure improvements will not only allow us to process our growing internal harvests but will also allow us to expand our partner network and purchase, process, and sell from additional farmers in 2024 and far into the future.
We have also aggressively expanded our lemongrass cultivation, imported a distillation system, and are constructing a new onsite facility for Lemongrass oil production. This will be completed by the Fall of 2024 and we will be selling Lemongrass oil before the end of the year.
While we do not anticipate dramatically expanding our product line further at Finca Chocolat we are continuing to sell units via our 506(c) private placement offering. These funds will be used to more rapidly plant out the remaining acreage available and build a HAACP-certified storage and processing facility for cacao over the next few years. Once we achieve that goal we may repeat the entire process with additional acreage to take advantage of the economies of scale associated with agriculture.