We are excited about our forest-to-bar (tree-to-bar) supply chain and multilevel non-profit business model. The business allows the worker-owned cooperative to get paid for its work and pay all the farmers, while investors earn a cooperative dividend, and contribute to the well-being of the Indigenous community while we make chocolate for you.
About Indigenous Chocolate Company: Where Tradition Meets Innovation
Deeply Rooted in Heritage:
Indigenous Chocolate Company is more than just a business; it's a legacy. Founded by Simeon Moreno of the De'Aruhua people, our company draws upon generations of experience cultivating and crafting chocolate. Our story stretches back to 1522 and even earlier, with evidence of our ancestors nurturing wild cacao trees.
Sustainable & Transparent Practices:
We are committed to slow, artisanal production methods that respect the environment and our community. Our off-the-grid location fosters a unique work ethic, with a focus on integral and transparent management.
Embracing the Future:
While we are deeply rooted in tradition, we recognize the importance of progress. We eagerly await the arrival of the Telstar system in 2023/2024, which will significantly improve our communication capabilities.
Working Together:
Indigenous Chocolate Company operates on a cash accrual basis, collaborating with international law to ensure ethical and responsible practices. Our distributors are responsible for compliance with their own government regulations. It's important to note that indigenous-produced goods are typically exempt from duties.
Leading the Way:
Indigenous Chocolate Company is proud to be at the forefront of the Indigenous chocolate movement. We believe our Piaroa cacao, a potential ancestor to other cacao varieties, represents the very origin of chocolate itself.
Join Us on the Journey:
By choosing Indigenous Chocolate, you're not just indulging in a delicious treat; you're supporting cultural preservation and sustainable practices.
We are a slow turn-around, semi-traditional, semi-isolated company that is managed integrally and transparently. All orders and business with our company take from 3 to 9 weeks to complete because of our distance from Internet communications and cellular telephone service. There are great hopes that the Telstar system will be available to us in 2023/2024. Indigenous operated businesses that are off-the grid and within the special indigenous jurisdiction operate ad hoc on a cash accrual basis, there are no taxes, or regulation, as commercial business proprietors we collaborate with international law. Distributors of our products are responsible to their own governments for the profits earned selling our products. There are never any duties on products grown, harvested, made or produced by Indigenous peoples.
Simeon Moreno of the De'Aruhua is the Founder of Indigenous Chocolate based on his tribe's experiences with chocolate since 1522 and earlier. His ancestors were found growing and harvesting wild cacao in 1671 by Spanish missionaries that monopolized the Piaroa Cacao which was famous through the late 19th century. It is believed we are the oldest cultivators of wild cacao and the origin of the Theobroma genome responsible for other cacaos.
Co-Founder, Simeon Moreno
"De'Aruhuä Cacao" is wholly owned and operated by Simeon Moreño, his parientes and neighbors from the Ajeteoto Community of the secluded Upper Paraguaza River Valley and 12 other Indigenous villages. Our cacao is marked in accordance with the Law of Indigenous Origin which includes brand name, community name, valley name, and regional international river.
Our Plain Label: De'Aruhuä Cacao, Ajeteoto, Alto Paraguaza, Orinoquia
This means to arrive at our community from the Atlantic Ocean you arrive by sea at the Orinoco then take the Paraguaza River to the first main branch the Upper Paraguaza then to Ajeteoto. To visit Ajeteoto in cacao season come in March and stay until late July, if you need a guide we can arrange that - meeting you at Puerto Carreño at the Huottuja Foundation office.
All funds from the agricultural production of cacao are disseminated to the community as a group. To ensure that this is the case the Huottuja Foundation takes photographs of funds, goods and supplies being distributed from Colombia or internationally that are delivered to the community, this is documented and recorded in logs and connected to our registers, cloud and blockchain data system.
"De'Aruhuä Indigenous Foods" is a cooperative sustainable development venture between the Huottuja (People of the Forest), De'aruhua (Guardians of the Forest), and community leaders with the Huottuja Foundation and Globcal International based in socially responsible investment. The De'aruhua bosqueros (foresters) have agreed to provide unlimited quantities of cacao and cacao fruits directly to the project from several different conucos and communities.
The chocolate factory project will serve multiple communities up to 33, perhaps more once we are able to process other foods, package teas, and macerate mother tinctures. As opposed to the American and European employment work for pay per person; the workers in the factory are designated by the leaders of the nearest villages which grow less cacao than the villages found deeper in the territory that grow more. The pay system for the designated artisan and craft chocolatiers will deliver a dividend to the community which is actually 1.5x greater than the employee's weekly hourly pay that is commensurate with salaries in Colombia for similar work. In 2022, our revised project to build a chocolate factory at Fundo Ekobius on Via Gavilan at Kilometer 24 next to Barranco Colorado instead of in Caracas was very well received.