Côte d’Ivoire
Native Ivorian cocoa comes from deep in the forest, it is dark, and its taste is strong and slightly earthy, permeated by the aroma of the bark.
We are proud of the chocolate we use in our specialties and to make sure you have only the very best, we have set up our Cocoa Farming Program, a sustainable strategy to ensure full respect for the resources of the planet, and for local farmers and their families.
We have chosen to source our cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire and Ecuador. Different in terms of terrain, climate, and social customs, the two countries provide two different varieties of cocoa beans, both of which are essential for creating the subtle refinement of our chocolates. We go out personally into the field for the harvests, no fewer than four times a year (twice to Côte d’Ivoire and twice to Ecuador). There we supervise the selection and quality-control processes, and we assist the local cooperatives and small farming communities, whom we meet with pleasure at each harvest.
The fairly limited quantity of raw materials we purchase means we can devote ourselves to the individual communities and closely monitor each stage, building up close, long-term relationships.
Our Cocoa Farming Program provides us with cocoa beans from Côte d’Ivoire and Ecuador, which come together to create the inimitable subtleties of our chocolate.
Native Ivorian cocoa comes from deep in the forest, it is dark, and its taste is strong and slightly earthy, permeated by the aroma of the bark.
In order to improve their lot, Ivorian women take time to learn about farming techniques and they are well inclined to working as a community. They now know much more about cultivating cacao: how to keep the plant clean, when to prune it in order to avoid any excessive growth that would make it hard to harvest the pods, how to use the banana leaves correctly, and how to avoid mold by manually turning the beans. In Côte d’Ivoire, Loacker promotes the re-use of old plantations, which are difficult to reach without machetes because they are deep in the jungle, as well as the creation of new ones.
Ecuadorian “fine flavor” cocoa has a floral aroma with a mellow, fruity bouquet, for au-thentic connoisseurs. Certified by the ICCO, this cacao was already known to the Maya.
Ecuador is currently the world’s third-largest cacao producer with 7% of global production (ICCO, 2019). Ecuadorian fermentation of the beans is one of the finest in the world, and the quality of the cacao it produces is very high, which is why it is called “fine flavor”.
In Ecuador, we chose to work with Maquita, a cooperative that has long collaborated with the fair-trade Altromercato organization: we want to give our growers sustainable trade opportunities. Altromercato and Maquita are both inspired by respect for human rights and they promote associationism, sustainable production, and fair trade, in order to improve the living conditions of vulnerable families. We have set up a project in the province of Manabì together with Maquita and Altromercato.
These are the steps that lead from the seedling to the semi-finished products (cocoa mass, powder, and butter):
This is how we take responsibility for people, for the environment and for our quality.
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