PACCARI

Santiago Peralta, founder of the company, is a man with a mission: to change the history of chocolate in his native country. In less than four years, the company, a family-owned business operated by Peralta and his wife Carla Barbotó, has revolutionized the industry in both Ecuador and Latin America by creating a transparent model of tree-to-bar manufacturing based on innovation, ecological and social responsibility, and direct trade with certified organic farms throughout the country. Peralta and his company benefit more than 3,500 farming families. “We are intimately connected to cacao farmers and their needs, and we work with them in many important ways: to help them improve cacao yields, in implementing programs of organic and biodynamic certification, even creating a school of organic agriculture (COLEGIO CEFA),” Peralta explains. “Sometimes our help might seem intangible like buying donkeys for a disabled farmer to ease his work load, or reducing the weight of cacao bags so that women can carry these bags more easily to local markets, but these small things also matter and are proof of our commitment to a direct model of interaction that puts the farmer first.”