Chocolate Production in Venezuela

The cocoa production in Venezuela (along the Caribbean Coast and Lake Maracaibo) has gone through a recent revival; a few years ago plantations had been abandoned due to a series of droughts and poor harvests. Yet the decline of the cocoa industry can be tracked much further back than that. Before the petroleum discovery in Venezuela in the thirties and forties, cocoa was Venezuelas number one export. The current government of Venezuela is fully aware that cocoa can once again become a main export and has invested $10 million dollars in production and training. http://branchiseinc.com/index.

htm Traveling through some of the old cocoa communities, you sense a pride and purpose that has long been missing. As one old timer said "The world is talking about us again. Ive waited a lifetime for that to happen.

Sometimes I felt like throwing in the towel, but now I am glad I didnt." Pink cocoa pods ripen in the shade of the trees, in early November there will be another harvest, the pods contain a white, sticky pulp that surrounds the cocoa beans, and these beans are what is processed into chocolate. http://branchiseinc.com/index.htm Fermentation of the seeds takes six days in wooden boxes, then they are sun dried (weather permitting) in the open air. The next procedure is to clean, sort, weigh and put them in sacks for export.

The last three years has seen the cacao production double which many believe is because of the change to organic farming. http://branchiseinc.com/index.htm The Venezuelan government has put 10 million dollars into training and research in the belief that cacao can once again be one of the leading exports of Venezuela.

Addition funding has been provided by the European Union through Tierra Viva, a non-government organization. The higher quality beans being produced in Venezuela today are being sought by America, France and Italy who are purchasing it for the production of single bean malt liquor. Thank you, http://branchiseinc.

com/index.htm.

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