April was maybe the busiest month of my life and May ain't getting any easier.
Since my last post lots of things have been happening.
Last week the owner of Taza Chocolate, Alex Whitmore, was here visiting the coop and staying with me at my house. It was needless to say, an awesome experience. His visit last year was pretty brief. It was clear that La Red was in trouble. This year Alex got to meet the new board of directors and buying team and had the opportunity to really see what's going on inside the organization.
If you don't know what Taza (Somerville, Massachusetts based chocolate company) is all about, check them out here. Super cool company. You should also check out their transparency reports that feature each place where they buy their organic beans from.
Now watch this video so you can make the connection between Taza and my project. Seriously though go watch the video or you won't understand the importance of this post.
Aside from the fact that we got some negotiating done, we will be sending a container of organic cacao (si dios quiere) to Taza in the beginning of June. I swear, when that container leaves port in Caucedo I'm going to drink and entire bottle of Brugal and dance for 3 days. No joke.
The new team at Coop La Red Guaconejo with Alex
The president of the coop and I
Lunch and fresh coconuts
Speaking of dancing, Alex loves himself some merengue tipico. Lucky for him, that type of music and style of dance comes from Nagua! Monday night we went to a "tipico" which is a live merengue band that plays right on the beach. People put on their Monday best and head out to dance the night away. And that's just what we did.
Alex dancing with our secretary Ariana
Early in the night.
After an extremely late night, we headed out early to do some visits. Our first one was at the house of the ex-administrator of the coop. Although she is no long with La Red, Alex worked with her for many years and wanted to say hello. Here I am with her niece, Irvianni.
From there our visits continued to OkoCaribe, another cacao association in San Francisco de Macoris where Alex buys organic beans.
choco talk.
From there we headed down to the capital for some more meetings and further discussions of the industry and it's future.
Alex's wife Kathleen designed our logo that you see on the sacks in the above pictures. He's been traveling down here for 7 years to work with La Red. They flew 5 members of the coop to the US in 2012 to see how chocolate is made in their factory. Alex pays $920 over NY market price per ton for our organic cacao because of it's quality (that's a really good price).
He has made it clear that Taza will do whatever they can to see La Red successful and sustainable again and I'm more than grateful. And he brought me tons of chocolate and I'm now addicted to stone ground organic 70% dark, so thanks for that, Alex.
It's been a long ride and as I said, it's long from over.
Siempre pa'lante, Kaley
Juan Ureña, a new member of coop Red Guaconejo with a cacao tree extremely flush with pods.
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