Ecuador
Ecuadorian Jungle Chocolate: A Tale of Taste and Hope
 Many
miles away from the Californian markets where health and environmentally
conscious consumers are paying high prices for increasingly
sophisticated products, 14,000 people in the Amazon Jungle
are transforming their lives as they add a little of this
"consciousness" to a traditional Ecuadorian activity: cultivating
cacao.
Despite the fact that for the past 40 years Ecuador has
been a leading cacao exporter, Ecuador surprisingly has never been an exporter of chocolate from its Amazonian
region. But for the past 3 years
now, small farmers in the provinces of Napo and Sucumbíos
have added branding and innovation to bring the world a taste
of the Amazon Jungle.
Yachana Gourmet is the result of a successful partnership
between USAID/Ecuador, the Ecuadorian-Canadian Fund, IDB and
the community. This is also the result of mixing a strong
entrepreneurial spirit with the community's drive to progress.
This flavorful tale begins when early in the morning the families
start working together in a "minga" to harvest the cacao fruit,
which is sold to Yachana Gourmet later that same day. After
a morning of harvesting, the pods are opened and the cacao
beans, still covered in sweet and fruity pulp, are scooped
out and packed for transport to the banks of the Napo River
where Yachana Gourmet buyers are waiting to purchase the cacao.
 Two
to three times a week, Yachana Gourmet canoes travel up and
down the river, purchasing cacao from rural communities. The
day's harvest is transported to Yachana Gourmet's cacao collection
center in the rainforest community of Agua Santa where its
transformation into Jungle Chocolate begins.
The beans are deposited in specially designed wooden boxes
where they are carefully fermented. These boxes are covered
with banana leafs to maintain the temperature required for
the fermentation process to take place. Proper fermentation
develops the cacao's rich, chocolate flavor. Next, the Yachana
Gourmet team spreads the beans out on wooden platforms to
be slowly sun dried. They then sort the beans, selecting the
best for the important toasting process that follows. Each
batch is toasted until the beans acquire a rich, nutty flavor
characteristic of dark chocolate.
 The
beans are then transported to Yachana Gourmet's production
facility in Quito, where the production team coarsely grinds
and separates the beans from their husks to create chocolate
"nibs" - little bits of all-natural, flavorful cacao. Yachana
Gourmet's unique, post-harvest process enhances the flavor
of the bean and creates a pure cacao nib, the primary ingredient
used in Yachana Jungle Chocolate. Yachana Gourmet's production
team mixes the nibs with other natural ingredients, such as
macadamia nuts and pineapple. Yachana Jungle Chocolate is
packaged fresh daily and shipped to markets worldwide.
 As
cacao gets processed and becomes a wonderful bar of chocolate,
the life of the 14,000 people involved in the Yachana Gourmet
chain of production changes. Many of the parents are now sending
the kids to better schools, as the nibs of chocolate and pineapple
have also brought nibs for hope.
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