Casa Segovia-Paz and Arcasy joined forces as cocoa trade partners

Although the Criollo bean is quite scarce the world over, a new variety has been discovered in the Amazon region of Bolivia. This new, indigenous bean is known as the Wild Cacao. Through the Fair Wild Certification program of the Institute for Marketecology (IMO), the first-ever Fair Trade certification was given for cocoa collected in the wild in November 2012.

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Cocoa trading partners, Casa Segovia-Paz and Arcasy, a Bolivian indigenous cooperative cocoa producer joined forces in October 2012.  They share the mission of advocating and fostering social and economic development while providing for the cocoa farmers and their families and protecting the environment in a sustainable manner.

Arcasy's mission is “to be certified as a wild cocoa bean provider, the process of collection is done under a forest management plan’s internal control system; for its ecological certification that will ensure a product with a standard of quality for export emphasizing a classification and selection of the bean that is aimed at a organized marketability for a segment of niche markets."

As a result about 160 farmers harvest wild cacao beans from the forest area of Yucarare. They use a process that expertly hand sorts, ferments and dries the beans, ensuring that only the best wild cocoa beans are bagged for commercial shipment to the United States.