A group of young entrepreneurs is eyeing the California market for Davao-sourced chocolates.
En Hakkore Tableya a United States based chocolate distributor has partnered with Tableya Filipino, a Davao City based chocolate company to bring Davao tableya to California.
“Our chocolates are a hit among the Filipino communities and Americans in California, they really like our Davao chocolates,” says Elspeth Rago, who co-manages En Hakkore.
“The Americans they like our tableya so much they eat it raw, usually we make it into tsokolate, there, some of our customers they eat the tableya,” Rago said.
She said the reception to the tableya in the United States has encouraged them to bring more Davao chocolates to their American market.
En Hakkore is currently the exclusive distributor of Tableya Filipino chocolates in the United States.
Rico Blando the proprietor of Tableya Filipino is looking at expanding their chocolate sources to Marilog. Currently they are sourcing their tableya in Calinan.
“We’re starting to develop communities and help the farmers understand the importance of cacao,” Blando said.
Blando said they are looking to partner with the Matigsalug indigenous community in Marilog where the vast ancestral domain can be used to plant cacao trees and help fill in the worldwide demand for chocolates.
“There is a one million metric ton scarcity in the market right now and the Philippines is not yet the biggest player of chocolate in the entire world,” Blando said.
However, he said Davao chocolate is very well known for its quality and the demand for cacao and chocolates has provided sufficient livelihood for these farmers. He said each Dabawenyo cacao farmer they partner is a small-scale farmer with an average of three to five hectares of farmland planted to cacao.
“In a year they can earn P1.8 million from their harvest that is big enough to support their children going and finishing school,” Blando said.
He said they would want to develop more cacao farming communities such as the one in Marilog so that they can commit bigger volume to promising markets such as the one in the United States. (PIA/RG Alama)
