Globalization: Ecuadorian Quechua Cacao Farmers enter the Global Market

On an island in the Napo River in Ecuador's Amazonian rain forest, in a tin-roofed hut on stilts, live some of the world’s most unusual chocolate entrepreneurs.

César and Magdalena Dahua grow cacao, along with pineapples, vanilla, avocados, cassava, coffee, oranges and plantains. As they hack off the football-shaped fruit of the cacao trees, their three youngest daughters run barefoot nearby. The girls stop to suck the sticky white pulp that envelops the cacao beans in the pods. It tastes like Sour Patch candies.

For Quechua people like the Dahuas, cacao has always been a treat But mostly, the beans were a commodity, sold for about 20 cents a pound to men who would bring them to the port of Guayaquil. From there they would be shipped around the world to be turned into mass-produced chocolate. Every once in a while the Quechua might even taste it.
But the Quechua grew tired of making such a meager living from so highly valued a product. With the help of volunteers they eliminated the middlemen and created their own chocolate. Now Kallari bars — named for the cooperative they formed — are being sold throughout the United States. People in the chocolate industry said they knew of no other cacao farmers who were making and marketing their own chocolate.
The cooperative uses an unusual blend of cacaos that grow on the Quichua land — fruity Cacao Amazónico, nutty Criollo, Forastero Amazónico, Tipo Trinitario and, most important, a rare variety that flourishes around their homes, Cacao Nacional.

“They have a certain smell and taste that is herbal, flowery but also savory, like black pepper,” Tomas Keme, a Swiss chocolate expert who consults for Kallari, said of the Cacao Nacional beans. The chocolate is smooth, rich and straightforward. To become chocolate makers the Quechua first had to decide to be more than just farmers. Logback said. Pozo said. Logback hired Dr. Jorge Ruiz, who had worked for a cacao cooperative on the coast, to teach the Quechua fermentation. Steinberg made a chocolate bar with Kallari beans and helped them present it at the Terra Madre conference of the Slow Food group in Turin, Italy. Pozo told Kallari elders that they should start making chocolate.
Pozo said. Alvarado, who had eaten only cheap commercial milk chocolate before he tried the Kallari bars. With Kallari’s permission and $250,000, Mr. McDonnell established the Kallari Chocolate Company, which lists him as the owner for liability and insurance reasons. All of the profits, though, go back to the Kallari cooperative.
McDonnell hired Mr. Keme to teach the collective about bean quality and techniques of Swiss chocolate making. Pozo. (The chocolate made in Salinas, less refined and slightly acidic, is sold in some health food stores as Kallari’s Sacha Bar.) (Paradoxically, Kallari does not have Fair Trade certification, since it would cost 8 cents per pound of beans and it seemed unfair for Kallari to pay a fee for its own beans.)
Plans for their own chocolate factory are in the works and Mr. Kallari farmers also hope to diversify to continue living sustainably off their land. Pozo said.