Looking for the best chocolate in the world? Venezuela has it!

The changes that the world economy has experienced in recent years have significantly affected the trade relations of the countries that produce raw materials, implying transformations in their economy. The supply and demand for cocoa beans are highly concentrated by geographic region. However, in the last twenty years changes have been observed in the geographical distribution of grain supply. Consequently, the origin of exports has shifted but without significant changes in the destination.

Cocoa was the first export product of Venezuela.

For two centuries, the cocoa, this fruit was in Venezuela the first product marketed abroad before coffee and oil. Chuao cocoa was trading very well on the Amsterdam market. Starting in the 17th century cocoa became the main product of Venezuelan agriculture for foreign trade, and the Dutch were the first to bring this fruit produced in our country to Europe. Cocoa from Hacienda Chuao, the oldest operating company in Venezuela was highly valued in the Dutch capital.

While the Spanish exported it to Mexico, a country where the largest market for this item was, but soon this would change. The commercialization of this product was taken over a little more than a century later by the Compañía Guipuzcoana, a company whose objective was to take the monopoly of trade in the Province of Venezuela, especially that of cocoa as the main export product and in which one of the shareholders was the King of Spain.

Venezuela has been isolated for the past 20 years due to its political ideology, which has resulted in a dramatic decline in cocoa production and exports. Cocoa farmers continued their production in the domestic market, but this proved to be insufficient. Their quality of life deteriorated, they could not sell their products.

At Giveafew, we have considered creating initiatives that generate solutions to problems and reactivate cocoa production.

In recent years, many families from production sectors that lived in areas with crops and were dedicated to harvest products such as cocoa made the decision to move to nearby cities to increase their quality of life and thus leave rural life. The countryside, due to the socioeconomic conditions that have developed over time in addition to the pandemic, many of these families have been affected, being left without opportunities, employment and homes.

Giveafew's mission is to implement a national 'Back to the Farm' project, which helps young people who have moved from the cocoa farm to the city find the opportunity and reactivate cocoa production on these valuable farmland and thus go back to carrying out the activities their roots used to do.

Giveafew is constantly monitoring the fate of these Venezuelan former cacao farmer families. Although the started projects have slowed down due to the closures during the COVID-19 period, our organization is constantly working to ensure that the new generation of cocoa-producing families can get educational development, tool support and better lifecondition through their fantastic profession, through the sale of their high-quality hand-made products in European and American market.