Growing, processing, and selling cacao has the potential to economically transform the Colombian Amazon. Cacao is a product that will see an increasing demand at a time of decreasing production. High profits may be realized by the development of this environmentally friendly crop through socially-conscious business.

1. Reducing poverty through a sustainable,
environmentally-conscious, profitable business
Cacao in the
Colombian Amazon
Promoting sustainability through
socially conscious business in
indigenous villages of the Amazon
Benjamin Angulo, Executive Director
La Libertad, Amazonas, Colombia
(57) 311-223-3274
13 Sunset Street
Thomaston, ME 04841
USA
(1) 207- 354-6231
benangulo@outlook.com

2. Problem -poverty
• The indigenous village of La Libertad has an
unemployment or underemployment rate of 90%
• Average income per villager is less than $1.90
USD/day, the World Bank’s definition of extreme
poverty
• The villagers suffer from malnutrition, poor
sanitation conditions, contaminated water, poor
health
Local Governmental Solution -giving things
• Small amount of public assistance (welfare) and gifts
• Monthly or bimonthly village visits from health or
social workers
• Healthcare services that are difficult and expensive
for the villagers to access (35 kilometers downriver)
• Village education until 5th grade

3. • To help the villagers to develop sustainable
business to earn the money that they need
to improve their lives
• We will do this primarily through the
production of organic, rainforest-friendly,
indigenously-grown, high-quality chocolate
Our Solution
“Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, feed him for a
lifetime.”

4. Concept of Chocolate Products

5. BusinessModel
PROBLEM
1) It is difficult to find
suppliers of high-quality
Cacao.
2) Chocolate companies
desire an organic, fair trade,
Rain Forest Certified
Product.
3) High-quality, specialty
cacao may be overly
expensive for the buyers.
EXISTING
ALTERNATIVES
1) Buy from high-priced
Suppliers.
2) Contact associations to
help find growers meeting
the buyer's needs.
3) Travel to cacao
producing areas to find qualified
growers.
SOLUTION
1) We will work with our buyers to
meet their specific needs
whenever possible.
2) Our product will be very cost-
competitive. The cacao growers
independently work their land.
They will then process their cacao
with the assistance of the
association, according to strict
quality standards.
3) The association will sell the
cacao for the growers, insuring
fair-trade practices at competitive
prices.
UNIQUE VALUE
PROPOSITION
A high-quality, organic, non-GMO,
fair trade, Rain Forest Certified
cacao produced in an indigenous
village of the Colombian Amazon.
Our non-profit association of
cacao growers gives the people of
the village the income they need
to lift themselves out of poverty,
while producing a sustainable
chocolate with their hearts and
the soul of the jungle.
HIGH-LEVEL
CONCEPT
We are the small-scale
Starbucks of sustainable chocolate
growers.
UNFAIR
ADVANTAGE
1) Produced economically on an
indigenous reservation..
2) An abundance of no-cost
land and water for
expansion of production.
3) Easily marketed and
identifiable region of
production: Amazon
Jungle.
4) Worker training supplied by
many governmental business
development agencies at no-cost.
5) Area resilient to global climate
change.
CUSTOMER
SEGMENTS
1) Artisan chocolate
Makers.
2) Bean-to-bar makers.
3) Micro-producers.
4) Chocolate-maker
hobbyists.
5) Sales of artisan baking
chocolate directly to
consumers.
EARLY ADOPTERS
Small, artisanal chocolate
companies that output a high
quality and more costly product.KEY METRICS
1) Amount of cacao
produced
2) Production rate
3) Reject ratio
4) Cycle time
5) Downtime
CHANNELS
1) Inbound: website, blog,
social media, public
Presentations.
2) Outbound: direct
business contact, trade
show exhibits, social media.
COST STRUCTURE
Fixed costs: Management salaries, accounting costs, legal expenses,
utility bills, building depreciation, taxes, licenses and fees.
Variable costs: Energy costs needed for growing and processing,
fertilizer, organically-approved insecticides and fungicides, maintenance
and upkeep of tools and equipment.
Human family costs are not included in the cost structure, as the workers are members of a
nonprofit, cooperative association.
No land costs are included in the cost structure. All land is communally owned and used at-
will by the members of the village.
REVENUE STREAMS
1) Initial funding with public funds, grants, and donations.
2) Selling beans to bean-to-bar makers.
3) Selling high-quality baking chocolate to chocolate makers.
4) Selling high-quality baking chocolate directly to buyers on Amazon.com.
Cacao in the
Colombian
Amazon

6. Underlying Magic –page 1
Why in the Colombian Amazon?
Land
• Over 150 hectares of farmable
land available per village.
• Land owned communally and
worked by individual families.
Water
• No adverse affects of
climate change on water are
predicted for the western
Amazon.
Climate
• Cacao is believed to have
originated in theAmazon
region. The climactic
condition for its growth
are highly favorable.
Agricultural
Workers
• Many experienced
agricultural workers are
available and currently
seeking employment.
Product
Transport
• A large cargo ship passes
La Libertad, bound for
Huston,Texas, every 40
days. It is mostly empty.

7. Underlying Magic –page 2
Increasing Demand
• The world consumption of cacao has
increased by 32% within the last 10
years, especially in dark chocolate.
• Emerging markets (China, India, Brazil)
are expect to further increase this
demand.
Decreasing Supply
• Global climate change is expected to
make many areas of current cacao
production (mainly in Africa) unusable.
• Many of the world’s cacao trees are
reaching the end-stages of their
productivity. New trees must be
planted to avoid severe shortages.
World-wide Shortage
• It is estimated that there will be a 1
million ton shortfall in world cacao
production by the year 2020.
• These shortages will cause dramatic
increase in prices.
Cacao Clones (non-
GMO)
• Clones are now available that may
produce up to 4 times the amount
of cacao (of high-quality) per tree.
• These same clones have natural
resistances to many of the
sicknesses that affect non-clones.
Why now?

8. A good example of a highly-
productive cacao tree cloneA non-clone
cacao tree

9. Competition
Where do we exist in
the larger overall
Market Space?
•We are small growers in
Colombia. The growers
of high-quality cacao in
Colombia are very few.
We have a very desirable,
highly marketable
product.
What are our
Advantages?
•We are to be less-
affected by drought due
to climate change.
•Our plantation is of high-
quality, highly-
productive, disease
resistant cloned cacao
trees.
•Easy transportation of
product on the Amazon
River.
•We are working with the
help of Colombian
governmental agencies,
agricultural institutions,
and other cacao-growing
cooperatives with over
100 years of experience.
How is your place in
the market unique to
you, and the right
one for your
company growth and
customers?
•We can expand our
production of cacao to
grow in other indigenous
communities of the
Amazon. This would
allow us to greatly scale-
up our production and to
attract larger contracts.
Who are the
competitors, why
have they
succeeded, and how
do you truly
differentiate from
them?
•In the eastern Colombian
Amazon we, currently,
have no competitors. In
the western Colombian
Amazon is a farmers co-
operative (with over 2000
small cacao growers) with
whom we are partnered.

10. Marketing and sales
Where are our
customers
looking today
and finding
help?
•Cacao association
and federations
•Internet
•Trade shows
Where will we
get in front of
them?
•Internet
•Direct phone
communication
•Trade shows
•Joining
organizations like
the Fine Chocolate
Industry
Association and
Direct Cacao
•Competition like
the annual
International
Chocolate Awards
in Paris.
How will we
achieve our
target growth
rates?
•Publicity
•Clear channels of
communication
with industry
leaders
•Attendance at
trade shows and
industry events
What are the
most important
and unique
channels and
methods we will
use to find and
win customers?
•Social media
platform used by
our nonprofit
foundation
How are we
doing it
differently than
others in the
space?
•Organic
•High-quality
product
•Rain Forest
Certification
•Fair-trade
•Indigenously
produced socially
conscious business

11. Project Associates
NationalTraining
Service
Cacao Growers
Association from
Western Amazon
Office of International Relations
and Secretary of Agriculture
BusinessAlliance to
Transform the Region
Chamber of Commerce
of the Amazon
Amazon Institute of
Scientific Research
Corporation for
Sustainable Development
Association of Farmers, Fishermen,
and Artisans of the Community of
La Libertad
Fundacion Amazon Pueblo
National Cacao
Growers Federation

12. Financial projections
Year 1 –clone nursery, planting 10 hectares
cacao and plantain
• Initial investment: 20,000 dollars
Year 2 –tending trees, harvesting plantain,
buying and setting up processing plant
• Crop and business costs: 12,000 dollars
• Processing plant costs: 15,000 dollars
• Income from plantain sales: 12,000 dollars
Year 3 –tending trees, harvesting plantain,
first year of cacao production
• Crop, plant, and business costs: 15,000
• Income from plantain sales: 10,000 dollars
• Income from cacao sales: 5,000 dollars
Year 4 –tending trees, harvesting plantain, second
year of cacao production
Crop, plant, and business costs: 20,000
Income from plantain sales: 5,000 dollars
Income from cacao sales: 15,000 dollars
Year 5 –tending trees, harvesting plantain, third year
of cacao production
Crop, plant, and business costs: 30,000 dollars
Income from plantain sales: 0.00 dollars
Income from cacao sales: 35,000 dollars
Year 6 –tending trees, harvesting plantain, fourth
year of cacao production
Crop, plant, and business costs: 40,000 dollars
Income from cacao sales: 60,000 dollars (income is a
combination of selling as a commodity and selling
high-quality, artisanal baking cacao)
All profits will be used to plant additional cacao
trees and to support educational and social projects
in the village.

13. Investment
Clone nursery, 10 hectares of cacao, business
operations
Amount:
$30,000
Use of proceeds in %:
Seedlings 33%, business operations 16.5%, nursery 16.5%,
fertilizer and pest control 16.5%, tools 9%, transportation
9%
Second planting of 10 hectares of cacao
Amount:
$20,000
Use of proceeds in %:
Seedlings 50%, fertilizer and pest control 20%,
tools 10%, transport 10%, business operation 10%
Initial planting of 4 hectares of exceptionally high-yield, high-
quality, plague resistant CATIE-R6 clones (estimated planting at
year 3)
Amount:
$50,000
Use of proceeds in %:
Clone costs and rights to sell 70%, business operations 15%,
tools 5%, transport 5%, fertilizer and pest control 5%
PHASE1PHASE2
PHASE4PHASE3
Production building, production equipment, labor
Amount:
$35,000
Use of proceeds in %:
Processing equipment 50%,
building construction 40%, business operation 10%

14. For example; Dagoba 100% baking chocolate sells for
$38.00 kilogram on Amazon.com.

15. References:
Fair Trade Cocoa Cooperatives,
http://www.globalexchange.org/fairtrade/cocoa/cooperatives
Chocolate Shortage Spurs Revival of Cocoa in Amazon,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-07/chocolate-shortage-spurs-
revival-of-cocoa-in-amazon-commodities
The Impact of Plant Diseases on World Chocolate Production,
http://www.apsnet.org/publications/apsnetfeatures/Pages/WorldChocolateProductio
n.aspx
Chocolate liquor, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_liquor
Overcoming the Main Limiting Factors of Cacao Production in Central America through
the use of Improved Clones,
http://www.icgd.reading.ac.uk/ref_data.php?refcode=PHI09A&table=yield
DAGOBA Unsweetened Baking Chocolate Bar , http://www.amazon.com/DAGOBA-
Unsweetened-Baking-Chocolate-6-Ounce/dp/B004NSMS96
Too Hot for Chocolate? Climate Change Could Decimate the $9 Billion Cocoa
Industry, Study Finds,
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/09/30/332951/chocolate-climate-change-
cocoa-industry-study/
Climate & Chocolate, https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-and/climate-
chocolate
Artisanal, hand-crafted chocolate is a growing niche,
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-artisan-chocolate-20150228-story.html
Bean-to-Bar 'Craft' Chocolate Makers in the United States (list by State),
http://ultimatechocolateblog.blogspot.com.co/2014/03/bean-to-bar-craft-chocolate-
makers-in.html
Cacao Genetic Enhancement Program, http://www.catie.ac.cr/en/products-and-
services/collections-and-germplasm-banks/international-cocoa-collection.html
Costa Rica's chocolate comeback, http://www.ticotimes.net/2014/01/27/costa-ricas-
chocolate-comeback