Cacao offers PH sweet growth prospects

[hubag bohol]

Marlet D. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer
2:28 AM | Sunday, February 22nd, 2015


Filipinos need to explore cacao’s potential as a major export commodity to points in North America and Europe, according to Alyssa Jade McDonald-Bartl, a social entrepreneur and founder of Blyss Chocolate.

“I am highly impressed with the cacao you grow here,” McDonald-Bartl recently told a group of Filipino cacao farmers, chefs, and culinary business experts.

She also mentioned how she was particularly struck by the way the stakeholders all worked together to maintain the industry’s high standards.

McDonald-Bartl is currently in the country for a series of speaking engagements.


More at: http://business.inquirer.net/187202/cacao-offers-ph-sweet-growth-prospects#ixzz3SRn6QsoS

[bolingitboy]

The bulk of Philippine-grown cacao beans that are exported to various western markets come from Davao Region. There is one big player there that has expanded its operations to the Visayas particularly in Carmen, Bohol, and Pinamungajan in Cebu. This means that in Bohol, there is a growing number of farmers who have gone into wide-scale cacao farming. If this is sustained, it will give not only figurative meaning to "Chocolate Hills" but literal meaning as well.

[hubag bohol]

Cacao is it!  All is not well in Ivory Coast, the world's largest cacao producer, so chocolate makers are now looking for other sources.