- Thread starter Tom F.
- Start date
World Cocoa Foundation Meeting
It would be so easy and profitable for everyone IF the D.R. would wake up and sell the produce. A natural resource, as well as many others, that are in demand.
Years ago? A major U.S. company contracted with the D.R. for bananas, pineapples, coconuts and other produce. The brand was in just about every major food store in the U.S. and beyond. The "cost of doing business" in the D.R. kept going up and more problems and more hands out. The company staff that was here would change every few months due to their frustration. After years of trying to work things out, they found other countries that welcomed them with open arms and WANTED the U.S. company to buy their produce and honored their agreement's. This major U.S. company pulled out of the D.R. and are doing very well with the produce from other countries.
As posted in other threads. The Dominican Republic is NOT user friendly.
Years ago? A major U.S. company contracted with the D.R. for bananas, pineapples, coconuts and other produce. The brand was in just about every major food store in the U.S. and beyond. The "cost of doing business" in the D.R. kept going up and more problems and more hands out. The company staff that was here would change every few months due to their frustration. After years of trying to work things out, they found other countries that welcomed them with open arms and WANTED the U.S. company to buy their produce and honored their agreement's. This major U.S. company pulled out of the D.R. and are doing very well with the produce from other countries.
As posted in other threads. The Dominican Republic is NOT user friendly.
thank you, tom, for this review. i liked their chocolate but then i like milka (the chocolate, not la mas dura). it is interesting to see the perspective of a specialist. lately miesposo has been travelling around the country a lot so i will ask him to get me info and samples on other small places making chocolate in DR. a while ago he brought me this:
i could not eat it. salty like hell.
i could not eat it. salty like hell.
thank you, tom, for this review. i liked their chocolate but then i like milka (the chocolate, not la mas dura). it is interesting to see the perspective of a specialist. lately miesposo has been travelling around the country a lot so i will ask him to get me info and samples on other small places making chocolate in DR. a while ago he brought me this:
i could not eat it. salty like hell.
The places to find the women associations are near Altamira, San Francisco de Macoris, Castillo, Hato Mayor, Yamasa, I think El Siebo and a new one near Gaspar Hernandez. There are other people out there doing the same thing but not as women associations and none are really doing a consistently fine product. The Rizek's have a nice chocolate available at the Sendero de Cacao near SFM and I assume somewhere in the Capital. Diana Munne has a nice shop in the Blue Mall I think. There is the Choco Museo in Punta Cana which I have not been too and probably more I do not know about. The stuff Munne and Cortez Hermanos sells is not high quality and cheap. I have met people at both companies and they are not even trying to put together a fine chocolate. Over the next five years you are going to see more and more single estate Dominican chocolate being sold in the US and hopefully in the DR.
The best from the Dominican perspective is to add as much value to the cacao by at least semi processing it into licor. Right now world commodity prices give little to know incentive to grow fine flavored cacao. Individual chocolate makers and companies will sometimes pay up to double the trading price for select high grade beans. Not much is really talked about it publicly and the majority of the time the premiums are much lower. The amount of really select, high quality beans being processed is still low.
I have lived in the DR a few times and have been going back and forth for more than 26 years and I understand the difficulties of doing business there. I will only work with trusted people who I have know for many years and have already tested their capabilities. One thing I have learned is to not try to break their system, but to figure out how to work within it.
It's not a matter of YOU breaking their system.... they do that for you and well past you knowing it.
I can not count the number of free trade zone companies that have closed shop and left. It was not a free zone at all.
Sorry, but I don't care how smart your think you are, history proves that you will not win. Proven over and over.
I DO believe that this country is sustainable with what it can produce and do very well. Problem is that individuals understand how to do things very well................. for them.
Such a shame.
As a good cacao farmer does, you diversify your revenue streams. Most cacao farmers have cattle, tree farms, and the production of many other local produce. No one I know relies strictly on revenues from cacao. Even the large exporters and producers like the Rizeks and Roigs have so many other business interests way beyond cacao. As I build up the chocolate business, there are opportunities for consulting work both in the DR and Haiti. I can also put together some cupcakes, brownies, fudge and many other things I have been working with over the last three years, and sell them at farmers markets and street fairs in the NY NJ area. I do not own any land, other people are going to harvest, ferment and dry; others will process (until I get past my small home production capacity), I will have small team in the DR mostly working with quality control, and then working on setting up a distribution system in the US that someone else will manage. As this gets started, it is obvious I will spend a lot more time managing a business rather than making chocolate. I am very confident that I will find a small niche and make this happen. When I start selling something and a few cents coming in, I will advertise on this website so I can speak more openly about what I plan on doing.
Nice job Frank. That is chocolate paste, mass or licor. It is basically a drinking chocolate at this point and can be used for baking. There is 51-53% fat or cocoa butter which differentiates it from the powder you buy at the store which has had butter pressed out of it and is usually 12-20% fat. It is a good fat.
They take the pods, open them, hopefully ferment but I doubt it, dry it, seperate, roast probably over wood, break, winnow, and often time grind in a pilon. If someone has a hand or electric corn grinder, it makes it a little easier. When you grind, it turns he chocolate into a sort of liquid type substance that can be put into any shape, and then it dries.
I purchase 4 oz. "balls" for 25 pesos and have told the women they need to sell it for 30. Usually others, take them into town and tell them for between 40-75. In the US, they would be about the equivalent of 150-175 pesos retail. That is if they are of good quality. Once you learn, you can tell by the smell.
They take the pods, open them, hopefully ferment but I doubt it, dry it, seperate, roast probably over wood, break, winnow, and often time grind in a pilon. If someone has a hand or electric corn grinder, it makes it a little easier. When you grind, it turns he chocolate into a sort of liquid type substance that can be put into any shape, and then it dries.
I purchase 4 oz. "balls" for 25 pesos and have told the women they need to sell it for 30. Usually others, take them into town and tell them for between 40-75. In the US, they would be about the equivalent of 150-175 pesos retail. That is if they are of good quality. Once you learn, you can tell by the smell.