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from Tumaco, Colombia
Cacao Hunters is the first Colombian company to source cacao and produce cocoa and chocolate within Colombia. They're an ideal partner, as their openness to innovation and experimentation enables them to produce the best cocoa possible.
Cacao Hunters works passionately with farmers growing local cultivars in regions where income generation has been difficult due to recent conflict. Owners Carlos Ignacio Velasco and Mayumi Ogata (a former pastry chef) met in Japan in 2009, and have been working together ever since to produce high-quality cocoa in challenged areas of Colombia.
Having built strong alliances with Tumaco producers, Cacao Hunters supports local families by providing stable, higher-than-market prices for good cocoa. They work with a variety of regional associations, each of which ferments its own cacao with the company's assistance and advice. Beans from Tumaco make up more than 60 percent of the cocoa that Cacao Hunters uses for their own chocolate brand; we feel fortunate to be able to procure some of these flavorful beans to use ourselves.
Cacao Hunters' chocolate may now be found in the best chocolate shops in major Colombian cities. In 2016, their Tumaco bar won for Best Milk Chocolate Bar in a competition of 900 products in Osaka, Japan.
