PROJECT TIMELINE
Updated: October 2023
Autumn 2023
Even after discontinuing our Zoque 88% bar, we remain committed to this project, importing the beans and supplying them to various craft chocolate makers in Europe.
Summer 2023
The cacao forest established with our 2019 and 2020 nursery seedlings is thriving, ensuring income for smallholder farmers, protecting biodiversity, and promoting climate-positive cacao.
Spring 2023
To ensure the highest cacao quality, the fermentation and drying infrastructure has been renovated and expanded.
Winter 2022
Our local partner Agrofloresta organized a capacity-building programme with Mexico Organico SC on organic pest control in cacao.
Autumn 2022
The clonal garden at El Rocio farm safeguards 10 cacao genotypes, the result of an extensive search and selection program for ancestral cacao. This provides our growers with access to local, native cacao varieties known for exceptional flavor, high productivity, and adaptation to regional conditions.
Summer 2022
The 114,000 trees produced in Cerro Blanco village have been delivered to local smallholder farmers.
Summer 2022
Our local partner Agrofloresta organized training courses on organic agriculture for the community growers in Zunu and Cerro Blanco.
Spring 2022
The nursery in Cerro Blanco village was renovated to produce approximately 100,000 cacao, fruit, timber, and native forest tree species for local smallholder farmers.
Winter 2021
In the local nursery in Ejido Mina 10.000 cacao seedlings are being produced and distributed to local growers.
Autumn 2021
70 growers participate in training courses for organic cacao growing in agroforestry systems.
Summer 2021
The local nursery in Cerro Blanco improves functionality to produce 10.0000 cacao seedlings.
Spring 2021
The local bean team organized the organic certification audit of remote farmers despite Covid and floods.
Winter 2020
The local Bean Team trained 41 farmers in the forest-friendly and cacao-growing villages of Zunu and Cerro Blanco.
Autumn 2020
The Bean Team raised 50.000 cacao trees and 20 types of shade and wood trees in a community nursery in Cerro Blanco. They then planted them in diverse agroforestry systems in the area.
Spring 2020
Together with Conservation International, our cacao growers have set up a new nursery in the village of Elido Mina to plant and distribute 50.000 cacao seedlings.
Winter 2019
The Bean Team trained 41 farmers in organic pest and disease management in the villages of Zunu and Cerro Blanco.
Spring 2019
Original Beans started a partnership with Conservation International to improve capacity building and nurseries.
Autumn 2018
Original Beans launches the Organic Zoque 88%.
Spring 2018
The Bean Team and its partners began a project of extensive mapping of flavour characateristics and soil types in the region to improve cacao quality and the yielding of cacao forest of indiginous grower communities.
Autumn 2017
The first container of Zoque Cacao beans is shipped to our beanstore in Amsterdam!
Spring 2017
Our direct-trade cacao chain is set-up for 3 indigenous communities, resulting in a 50% increase in local cacao prices.
Autumn 2016
60 indigenous cacao growing families received organic certificationfor the first time.
Spring 2016
Our partners trained 60 cacao growing families in agroforestry and organic farming.
Autumn 2015
Our partners planted 40,000 trees in diverse agroforestry systems.
Summer 2015
Together with our local partners, we established the first state-of-the-art cacao fermentation and drying facility.
Spring 2015
Our local partner social enterprise, Agrofloresta Mesoamericana, is founded.
Autumn 2014
Our Bean Team established the first cacao agroforestry orchard, showing how farmers can convert cattle pasture to cacao agroforestry.
Visit the complete timeline of this project.
Zoque 88%
Tropical aromas of lychee and coconut in this select tribal Tabasqueño cacao have lifted the spirits of local Zoque and Tzotzil tribes for 4,000 years in Mexico’s largest rainforest, the Selva Zoque.