Fall 2016

Since the update in June much has been accomplished at Finca Chocolat. Richard, Marty and the crew achieved a 98%+ germination rate, which is fantastic, and the trees have been growing extremely well.

Trees in Nursery as of Sept. 12, 2016

While the trees were growing in the nursery, one of Marty’s primary goals was to identify, recruit and train additional workers. Given local customs regarding work in Belize, this will likely be an ongoing process but he now has a core group established and has identified those he would like to see come back on a seasonal basis as necessary. Below is a portion of the crew planting trees as of October 2016.

Partial Finca Crew Oct. 2016

Prior to planting the crew cut about 10,000 “bush sticks” so they could lay out exactly where each tree would be placed.

Stakes

Stakes are placed in an 8′ x 10′ grid with the start of each row being offset by 4′ from its neighboring row.

Laying out the fields Fall 2016

Despite using pre-measured tools to help with the layout Marty had to do a bit of ‘coaching’ to enforce the idea that trees would be in a definite pattern versus simply planted ‘more or less’ where the workers thought they should be.

It is hard to capture the scale of any of this on film but the picture below will start to give a feeling the scope involved. This is just part of one field.

Initial Fields Staked Out – Sept 2016

While stakes were being cut and fields laid out we made a trip to an old Hershey plantation in Belize that is currently being revitalized to investigate their drying, fermentation and storage facilities as we are beginning to plan out our process for Finca Chocolat this year.

Xibun Drying August 2016

Xibun Fermentation August 2016

Xibun Storage August 2016

Although few entities have applied any process engineering to cacao production in the last few hundred years we hope to streamline our process and increase efficiency with a bit of forethought.

To date, we have planted around 25,000 seedlings with the remainder being planted as quickly as weather and manpower allow. We intend to have all of the plants out of the nursery and planted by the end of November.

Finca Chocolat – Trees Planted Oct. 2016

Having all the trees planted prior to the onset of the dry season was challenging this year given our late start in the Spring of 2016 rather than the Fall of 2015. While year two will have its own challenges, thankfully we are able to start new seedlings in the nursery about four months earlier than we were this past season.

Overall work is going very well and we are off to a good start. We encourage all investors to come and see Finca Chocolat for themselves so you can truly understand the scale and see first-hand how the farm is coming along!

We leave you with a few additional pictures below and look forward to your comments.