EL CACAO

A GOOD PLACE

As cocoa pioneers, we combine Nicaraguan cocoa know-how with Swabian inventiveness at our farm El Cacao. Together with our 450 employees, we rethink every step of cocoa production at our El Cacao farm. We want to show that it is also possible to grow cocoa under socially and ecologically decent conditions and at competitive prices at the same time.

HANDMADE

We plant our cacao on about 1,200 hectares at El Cacao. After the young plants are grown, it takes about 3-5 years before the cacao tree bears fruit ready for harvesting. It is not so easy to care for and requires a lot of care from our colleagues. Knowing the right time to harvest the fruit is extremely important and requires a lot of experience and knowledge. The fruits are harvested individually by hand directly from the cocoa tree.

With a total area of 2,500 hectares, El Cacao is considered one of the most extensive coherent cocoa farms. However, only just under half is used for cocoa cultivation. Another 1,200 hectares consist of forest and wetland areas, which will remain untouched in the future to protect and promote biodiversity. Once El Cacao will reach its full productivity, we will be able to cover around 20-25 percent of our cocoa mass demand.

GROWING

To date, we have already planted over 1 million cacao trees on El Cacao. Since you can't just buy the right plants in sufficient numbers anywhere, we have built up our nurseries to grow our cacao plants. Incidentally, twelve different varieties of the fine Trinitario cocoa are grown on El Cacao.