The early stages of developing a new cacao plantation are certainly the most interesting and exciting. After eight busy months of developing the nursery, preparing the land, and planting 75,000 cacao saplings, now it's almost time for grafting!
Grafting is a form of vegetative cloning or propagation. Vegetative cloning allows growers to perpetuate specific traits such as fruit quality, flavor, disease resistance, and high yield.
In cacao, just as in coffee, different varietals have different qualities. Some are more robust, with strong root systems, high yields, and are resistant to disease, but tend to have a low quality of cacao. Other varietals produce super high-quality cacao but have a weak root system and are susceptible to disease.
Grafting allows us to marry the best of both.
Grafting is a skill that not all cacao farmers possess, so we are hiring ten specialist cacao grafters for this 12-week project.
In the images below, you will see the main supplies needed for grafting. #1 the rootstock, #2 the scion (budwood), #3 a grafting knife, and #4 special grafting rubber, and #5 70% isopropyl alcohol.
We will be grafting directly onto the saplings that our team is busy planting as we speak. So instead of moving the saplings after grafting, which can cause damage, our Rootstock is already growing on the farm. The varietal of rootstock chosen is IMC67, and some hybrids, natural to the region.
The Scion, or Budwood, has been carefully selected and ordered from a trusted grower in the Bocas del Toro region, the same supplier where we sourced the cacao seeds for our nursery. The budwood chosen are CATIE R1, R6, and R4 as well as PMCT58, ICS95 and CC137. All chosen to provide a range of excellent quality, aroma and flavor profiles.
They will deliver the budwood freshly cut, disinfected and waxed to protect against disease and water loss.
When ready to begin, the grafter will sterilize his grafting knife with 70% alcohol to disinfect it and do so in between every graft.
In the field, he will cut off the top of the sapling (rootstock), remove the leaves, and cut the stem at an angle, exposing the cambium tissue.
He will then make a similar cut to the base of the budwood, then attach the budwood to the rootstock, making sure the cambium tissue of both is matching and sealed. Then the graft union is wrapped with special grafting rubber and sealed with parafilm for extra protection.
This process will be done to all 75,000 saplings over 12 weeks, starting soon, and we will be sure to update you with photos during the process.
If you enjoyed learning about grafting and how we develop our cacao plantations, come see for yourself!
Now that the world is getting back to normal, we are starting our origin tours again.
Since we held our last tour, pre-pandemic, we have added this new cacao farm and opened our chocolate factory. So now you can visit coffee and cacao farms, see the post-harvest facilities and learn how chocolate is made, all on the same tour.
We can now offer a vertically integrated tour, of coffee and chocolate, from the seed to the finished product, all here in Panama.
We will soon be announcing dates for our group tours, so stay tuned and be sure to sign up, as spaces usually fill up quickly.
Or, if you prefer a private tour, we are here and ready to receive you anytime.
Simply let me know your desired dates and how many travelers are with you, and we will set it up.
We are looking forward to opening up the farms, facilities, and our AgroNosotros family to group and private tours, and we cannot wait to meet you all.
“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the next best time is today.”
As planting season is upon us once again in Panama, the farms are a hive of activity.
In Boquete, the coffee farmers are preparing to plant 80,000 coffee saplings of the most in-demand varietals across our network of 11 specialty coffee farms. We have operated one large centralized nursery at our Cuatro Camino’s farm for the last few years and distributed the saplings come planting season.
This year, as part of the constant evolution of our farming practices, we created small micro-nurseries in the regions and on the farms, where the saplings would be planted. There are several benefits to this.
This way, the saplings develop at the altitude and micro-climate of the farm in which they will be planted. The risk of damage during transportation is all but eliminated, as well as the cost of doing so. These higher altitude farms also have more natural shade, lower nighttime temperatures, and more rain, creating perfect conditions for “our babies” to develop.
These 80,000 saplings, including varietals like Caturra, Catuai, Pacamara, Typica, and Geisha, will be strategically planted throughout all our farms, getting some farms fully planted and replacing the older trees in the earlier farms we acquired.
As the team begins planting, we will be sure to send you photos and videos to witness this exciting project for yourself.
With the recent acquisition of our first cacao farm in Chiriqui Grande, Panama, the cacao farming team is all hands to the pump as they build out our new cacao sapling nursery from scratch.
It’s a lot of work to clear the area, prepare the soil, create the infrastructure with local bamboo, then begin filling bags. Lots of bags!
This nursery will be home to 75,000 cacao saplings, so that’s 75,000 bags that each need to be filled by hand, on the farm, in the rain and humidity. As you will see in the video below, we have hired a crew from the local villages who have years of experience with cacao nurseries and in these conditions.
It’s incredible to witness as the whole community gathers together, young and old, men and women, working seamlessness, with chickens and roosters roaming free amongst them!
One of the farmers put together some clips from his phone, so we could share the progress and give you an insight into the hard work they do on behalf of our investors and our group of companies.
It’s not Hollywood production quality, but you get the picture!
These 155,000 saplings will need time to reach production, but when they do, they will produce coffee and cacao for 15 and 25 years, respectively. That’s 15 and 25 years of specialty coffee and cacao and 15 and 25 years of passive cash flow for our investors.
And with proper farm management and crop rotation, that can continue in perpetuity,
If you are interested in participating in any of our projects, in creating passive income for you and your heirs from specialty agriculture, schedule a call with me here to find out more about our current coffee and cacao opportunities.
How often have you heard the phrase “boots on the ground” used in the investment or real estate industry?
Originally it was a Military saying. "Boots on the ground" is shorthand for troops deployed in a foreign country. ... Infantry has been stomping in boots through the mud….
It has become a critical phrase recently for any passive investor who is investing offshore.
You want to know that you are investing with a partner, an operator, who has in-depth knowledge of the country, the local market, and the industry, that you are investing in.
Even more, you want to know that they are there, in the weeds daily, and an active part of the community. They know the good, the bad, and the ugly about the area where you are investing.
Another commonly used phrase is “Passive Investor.” This is where you, as the investor, invest your hard-earned savings or pension funds, and the operator does the work on your behalf.
Our clients invest with us because we are in-country, hands-on, and our workers live literally on our farms.
What is not reported on often enough and in enough detail is exactly how much hard work the farmers and workers do day-in and day-out, all year long. Working to develop specialty coffee and cacao farms, from scratch, in Tropical conditions, to ensure a return on your investment.
If you have been following our recent updates, you will know that we acquired 62.5 hectares (155 acres) of fertile farmland in Chiriqui Grande, Panama that we are developing into a large, specialty cacao farm.
Some of our Team have relocated from Boquete to the new farm and have begun working on phase 1. We are building the new nursery that will house 75,000 cacao saplings. Creating this nursery from scratch during the rainy season is hard, dirty work!
Below are some images and videos to give you just a tiny glimpse into the daily life of our coffee and cacao farm workers, who are literally “muddy boots on the ground,” working daily to make these farms a success for all of us.
We are all guilty of taking our food for granted. We simply go to the supermarket and pick up our finished product with not much care and certainly no idea of what went into making those products.
As we continue to develop our brands of specialty coffee and chocolate, we will work to connect the end consumer with the farmers and the team that produce our products.
In the specialty food industry, Direct Trade is now where the focus is shifting. Consumers want to see a direct line to the people who grow their food and know that they are well treated and well-compensated.
Check out our Cuatro Camino’s coffee website and Mahogany Chocolate website where you can meet our farmers and their families and put a face to the Team behind the finished products!
This week was another eventful week in our development as we packed and shipped our first order of specialty coffee and chocolate from the new chocolate factory in Panama to our client in the US.
For some time now, you have been able to order our Belizean range of bars and other chocolate products on Amazon, Shopify, and other online channels, for local US delivery.
Now, in just a few short weeks, you will be able to order and sample our Panamanian range of chocolate bars, as well as our roasted specialty coffee and even some cascara!
To date, all of our coffee has been sold and shipped green (un-roasted) in large volumes to roasters around the world. However, this is the first time our coffee will be available roasted, in 250-gram bags, with local US delivery.
So whether you are an existing client or a long-term reader of these newsletters, now you can finally enjoy some of our delicious coffee and chocolate products in the comfort of your own home.
As soon as the products are online and ready to be delivered, we will send you the links.
Panama Origin Tours Are Back!
As excited as we are to have our products available for you to try at home, nothing beats the experience of visiting us at Origin to see how it all works.
Pre-Pandemic, we would host six tours a year in Panama and Belize, where groups of intrepid travelers would come and spend a few days with us, walking the farms, meeting the team, sampling the various products, and really getting to know us.
It’s no coincidence that our largest clients and biggest advocates have all been to origin, some on more than one occasion. Sure, emails like this are an excellent medium to get a story across. Still, nothing beats meeting the team in the flesh and truly understanding all the hard work that goes into developing specialty coffee and cacao farms and producing high-end products. Not to mention the social impact your investment has on the community.
So, we are delighted to announce that we will once again be hosting coffee and cacao farm tours in Panama.
Who is ready for an adventure?
Visit our new tour page and discover what’s in store!
Please let us know if you are interested in traveling to Panama over the next six months, how many people you would be traveling with, and what your ideal time to travel is.
Based on the responses, we will produce and share a schedule of tours for you to choose from.
We very much look forward to seeing you in person once again and hosting you in Panama soon.
Exciting times this week as our farm team got started building our 75,000 capacity cacao sapling nursery on our new farm in Chiriqui Grande, Panama.
Andres Lopez, or VP of Farming Operations, had carefully identified the best area on the 62.5 hectares (156 acres), based on the topography, location, access, and soil.
We will be using soil directly from the farms to fill the 75,000 bags in the nursery, mixed with some sand and other ingredients from Andre’s "secret formula," to give the saplings everything they need in these critical, formative months.
Cacao trees have an optimal production lifespan of 25 years. So, before you plant an entire farm, you need to be sure that you have only the strongest, highest-quality saplings grown from the best seeds in the best possible conditions before you commit to them for 25 years!
We will also be grafting, using stock from carefully selected varietals, which we will report on in detail when we reach that stage in the process.
In a previous email, we mentioned that some of our coffee farming team relocated to live on and manage this new farm. The first person to relocate was Eliceo Miranda, one of our most trusted and longest-serving farmers. Friends and colleagues call him Cheo!
Cheo’s family is originally from the community where the new farm is located, and he was happy to return home and take charge of the first stages of this project.
We rented him a house on the property, and he is already settled in and working on the nursery.
Cheo will be supplying regular photos and updates as we develop the nursery and begin preparing then planting the farm, so we will have lots of regular updates coming your way.
Stay Tuned!
Hello and greetings from all of our Team here in Panama.
To all of our clients and followers in the US, we hope you enjoyed a 4th of July weekend with family and friends and a glimpse of getting back to "normal" after a tough 18 months or so.
While the pandemic was tough on all of us, it gave us some time to pause and take stock of where we are, with our businesses and personal lives. For our Team, it allowed us to spend more time working ON our business versus the busy day-to-day of working IN our business.
One strategic decision we made during that time was to take action and secure the long-term supply of raw cacao for Mahogany Chocolate. As you establish a brand and develop channels to market, you need to know that you have a reliable source of raw ingredients to meet your production needs. And you need to know that those ingredients and inputs will be consistent quality, quantity, and price, year on year.
When dealing with cacao for making chocolate, we also need consistent flavor profiles. And for us here at AgroNosotros, we need to know that the cacao was grown in an Environmentally Sustainable way and that the cacao farmers were well treated and fairly compensated, following our Socially Sustainable business principles.
When you are sourcing cacao from the open market, all of the above is difficult to control.
So, we are very proud to announce that we have acquired a large area of fertile farmland in the Chiriqui Grande area of Panama that was once famous for producing excellent, high-quality cacao.
Choosing Panama as the destination was an important strategic decision. We already have five operating cacao farms in Toledo, Belize, and now we need to secure the future production of Panamanian cacao.
The logistical benefits of operating a large cacao plantation in a country with the Panama Canal, which uses the US dollar as its local currency, and most of our executive team are located here, making it an obvious choice.
And for our investors, as with our most recent Offerings, we have also restructured our model to make it IRA, 401k, and eQRP friendly once again.
Are you interested in participating in this exciting cacao farmland project in Panama?
Simply reach out via email, and we can begin the due diligence process.
We are delighted to announce the addition of a beautiful 62.5 hectares (155 acres) cacao farm to our portfolio of specialty agriculture farmland in Panama.
With 11 specialty coffee farms in Panama and 5 cacao farms in Belize, this will be our first cacao farm in Panama, and we are very excited about it.
Located in Chiriqui Grande, near Bocas del Torro, this latest addition to our portfolio will secure the long-term supply of high-end, specialty cacao that we know is grown in an ethically and environmentally sustainable fashion.
We have spent a year doing our due diligence on farmland in various regions of Panama, and we couldn’t be happier with the farm, the growing conditions, and the community in Chiriqui Grande.
Work is already underway to source the seeds and grafting material to build a nursery with 75,000 saplings that will be planted before the end of the year.
The team is in place and eager to get going, prepare the land, build the nursery, and improve the infrastructure to house some of our workers.
As we continue to develop channels to market in Japan and Europe for our coffee and chocolate products, knowing that we can produce enough raw cacao to meet those growing production needs was crucial.
This new cacao farmland secures that long-term supply of cacao that we need.
We will have more videos and photos coming your way over the next few weeks and months as we begin to develop this project.
To find out how you can participate and earn cash flow from cacao for you and your heirs, reach out via email, and we will be happy to explain the opportunity, provide the Private Placement documentation, and see if this is a good fit for you and your portfolio.
Last week we announced that the 1st container shipment of bars and other chocolate products from Belize had arrived in the US.
This shipment meant that our Belizean chocolate products were available for order with local US delivery once again in their new and improved packaging.
Dozens of you have written to say that you had ordered the bars and chocolate drink and that they already arrived and tasted amazing.
It’s a very proud moment for all of our Team and parcel Owners when we hear such glowing testimonials. So thank you.
Now, hot on the heels of the latest Belizean shipment, we are very excited to announce that our very first order of Panamanian chocolate bars and roasted coffee are also heading to the US!
The very same client is adding the Panamanian range of bars to his current inventory and has asked to include roasted coffee and cascara.
Of course, we said Yes!
So now, for those of you who recently invested in Peini Cacao Plantation, LLC, you can soon order and sample Your delicious chocolate bars from the new factory in Panama.
And for the hundreds of coffee farm parcel Owners who have not had the chance to come to Panama and visit the farms, now you can order some fantastic roasted coffee from across our 11 coffee farms in Boquete and proudly share them with your family and friends.
We are very excited about making these products available with local US delivery, as sending small volumes from Panama is so cost-prohibitive due to shipping costs.
As soon as the order is shipped and available, we will let you all know.
For anyone who orders coffee or chocolate products from Panama or Belize, we would love it if you could send us some photos of you with the products in hand.
We will create a montage of our clients enjoying their coffee and chocolate, with family and friends, maybe in front of famous landmarks, all across the US!
After six long years of hard work, bumps in the road, and unforeseen surprises, it’s hugely satisfying to have our products coming to market.
For those of you following our progress, you will have heard us mentioning Japan and our Japanese partners more and more frequently.
You hopefully saw the announcement in February where we sent our first shipment of chocolate bars to Japan from our new factory in Panama.
This order was placed by our new Japanese clients, who happen to be one of the largest trading companies in Japan and SE Asia. Who also happens to own a very large travel company.
With the pandemic massively affecting their travel business, they have been pretty inventive and started doing virtual tours to destinations they would usually travel to.
They have had live virtual tours from Africa, Europe and now, on July 10th, they will be streaming live from the cacao farms and the chocolate factory in Panama!
Sneak peek of the farm and facilities that they will Virtually Tour!
When the customer signs up for the tour, they will also receive one of our chocolate bars in the mail.
So as they virtually make their way through the entire seed to bean to bar process, guided by our team of experts, they will be able to taste the end product in real-time.
At the end of the tour, we will also hold a chocolate tasting class, so hopefully, they haven’t eaten it all by then!
This is just one small step in the marketing and promotion plan as we introduce our Panamanian and Belizean chocolate to the Japanese market.
And, the event will be opened by a very special guest. The Panamanian Ambassador to Japan will open the tour with some information on current and future trade relationships.
And he will explain why the Panamanian Embassy is officially backing our bars to bring more awareness to the quality of our products and the social and environmental projects that we have implemented and planned in Panama.
Stay tuned for more information on this hugely exciting event!
We are pleased to announce that our US distributor of Belizean chocolate bars has received his container and is fully stocked up!
As many of your know, we have been working with a client of ours in the US that made our Belizean range of chocolate bars available on Amazon and Shopify.
Back in January he placed a large order which we sent by sea in March and which has finally landed, cleared customs, and is ready for sale with local US delivery.
Up until now he only had the 72% Belizean 80-gram bar and our Brukdown 57% dark milk 50-gram bars available. Now we are very pleased to announce that you can find and order our full range of Belizean bars and our new delicious chocolate powdered drink, Chocol’ha.
You can see our full range of bars below in their new and improved packaging.
So if you are an existing cacao parcel owner who has never been to Belize to taste the amazing chocolate from YOUR FARMS… they are now easily available with delivery to your door.
If you have been following our progress and are interested in investing or simply in trying some of the best chocolate from Belize, having these bars available with US distribution makes it possible for you to do so.
Check out the following link, order some bars and Chocol’ha for family and friends, and dont forget to give us a 4 star review 🙂