Our cocoa farmers
Costa Rica is known all around the globe for its high-quality, fine flavour cocoa. The Cocoa Sourcing Map helps connect buyers to suppliers and provide chemical analyses of the different cocoa beans according to modern research and technologies.
Our Story
Costa Rica is one of only nine countries that the ICCO (International Cocoa Organisation) has recognized as producers of exclusively fine flavour cocoa. And indeed, Costa Rican cocoa is highly regarded for its exceptional quality. With a rich Mayan and Aztek culture, the country has close and distinguished historical ties to cocoa and its production dating back to pre-Columbian times. The uniqueness of Costa Rica as a cocoa producer lies in the fact that due to Costa Rica’s microclimates, cacao trees are grown in multiple regions of the country. Thriving cocoa plantations can be found from coast to coast, many in the provinces of Guanacaste, Alajuela, Limón, Cartago, and Puntarenas.
Costa Rica’s strong economy and skilled labor force with high wages lead to generally higher prices for cocoa beans, making it difficult for Costa Rican cocoa to be competitive in terms of quantity on the world market. Due to the country’s strict environmental regulations and incentives to protect their various ecosystems, cocoa farmers in Costa Rica enjoy a good reputation in the topic of sustainable cultivation.
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This website was developed as a collaborative project by the Laboratorio de Calidad e Innovación Agroalimentaria, Escuela de Ciencias Agrarias​ of the Universitad Nacional Costa Rica and the School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences in Zollikofen, Switzerland. By involving smallholders, cocoa producers and traders as well as industry partners both in Costa Rica and in Switzerland, we aimed to build an informative and innovative platform to serve as a possibility for direct exchange between different stakeholders and ideally as a platform for buyers to find suppliers of interest.
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Our goal is to give cocoa farmers a platform to introduce their products and reach out to potential clients as well as providing a chemical analysis of identified key quality metrics of their products. This serves to provide feedback on cocoa quality for suppliers and serves as an informative tool for buyers to assist them in their decision-making.
Cocoa producers
Cocoa processors
Researchers
The Cocoa Sourcing Map helps connect smallholders as well as larger cocoa producers from all over Costa Rica with prospective buyers.
Cocoa processors and chocolate manufacturers, in particular artisanal and bean-to-bar producers, can avail of the Cocoa Sourcing Map to find reliable sourcing partners with high-quality beans corresponding to their flavor profiles of choice.
The Universitad Nacional in Heredia, CR and the School of Applied Sciences of Agricultural, Food and Forest Sciences in Bern, Switzerland, work in cooperation to develop and adpt research methods to adequately assess quality features of cocoa beans.
TEST PROTOCOL
Cocoa quality assessment
The quality metrics chosen to assess include physical and chemical requirements for cocoa beans. These requirements are defined and set by researchers, chocolate processors and manufacturers and serve as a general set of standards for producers.
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Protocol testing
The testing occurs in the Laboratorio de Calidad e Innovación Agroalimentaria, Escuela de Ciencias Agrarias​, Universitad Nacional, Costa Rica. The tests are conducted by young trained professionals and researchers who are experts on the topic of cocoa beans and food quality.