Exporter of the week: this is the company that exalts the Colombian cocoa crop and exports fine chocolate
Procolcacao manufactures and sells in exotic destinations real chocolate products, made with premium Colombian cocoa, without mixtures or preservatives. Its work strengthens the cultivation of fine and aromatic cocoa and improves the palate of Colombians.
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For more than 500 years, the cultivation of cocoa conquered the palates of the colonizers and the Spanish monarchy. It was precisely a shipment from what is now Norte de Santander that arrived for the first time in the old continent in 1580, as a trophy of the colonizers on their way through our continent.
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And in the last decade, our country has opened a path to consolidate itself as an exporter of fine and aromatic cocoa, a category that improves the prices of Colombian cocoa abroad.
In fact, figures from Procolombia show that 2022 was a positive year for sales of cocoa and its derivatives. Exports of this good went from USD $125.3 million in 2021 to USD $131.1 million in 2022.
In addition, according to DANE data, between January and April 2023, 8,884 metric tons were exported and sales have reached USD $39.2 million.
To learn more about the cultivation of cocoa, about the production of this fruit of Mesoamerican origin and about the international marketing of Colombian cocoa, we talked to Gloria Margarita Trujillo, general manager of the company Productores Colombianos de Cacao (Procolcacao), a company that presents to the world market a cocoa with high added value.
All Procolcacao products are 100% cocoa, with zero blends, contain no preservatives and are made with premium cocoa beans.
In this written and video interview, we highlight Procolcacao’s exports from the cultivation of very high quality cocoa from Colombia’s famous cocoa plantations.

Below, we transcribe part of the interview, which you can watch in full in the video located at the top of the page.
How was Procolcacao born?
Our company is called Procolcacao and our commercial brand is called Puro Cacao.
We have been in the Colombian cocoa market for 12 years, and during this time we have managed to export the fruit of our cocoa crops to countries as far away as Slovakia, South Korea, the Philippines and Argentina.
When we were born, we had the opportunity to get closer to farmers and cocoa growers in different regions of Colombia and we understood that there was a great need in the sector.
In addition, with the founders of Procolcacao, we realized that I could be a support for the commercialization of Colombian cocoa, because I could train and directly accompany cocoa farmers so that they could work with excellent raw material from this cocoa crop.
Today we have suppliers from different regions of the country and we are able to transform this product, called cocoa, into raw material for the industry, and we were also able to create a line of snacks with Colombian cocoa.
The commercial brand Puro Cacao has no mixtures, it is a spectacular cocoa because it is pure Colombian. This line has been achieved thanks to the work done in cocoa cultivation and on the farms with the farmers.
These practices are essential to achieve the flavors and aromas of the pure Colombian cocoa that we offer today.

What are the areas for the cultivation of Colombian cocoa?
Colombian cocoa is grown in all departments, except in San Andres.
According to the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO), these cocoas are part of the 5% of fine cocoas of flavor, air and aroma found in the world.
With that privilege, in Colombia we have a great opportunity to take advantage of.
The great work that is done with the cultivation of Colombian cocoa on farms seeks that, in the post-harvest process, all the flavors and aromas are accentuated with a good transformation.
This opportunity can be better exploited by accompanying the farmer in the post-harvest process, when we can offer a fair price, add value to the product and, finally, present it to the market as an excellent product.
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From the cultivation of Colombian cocoa, what are the company’s main products?
Cocoa is part of the commodities, or raw materials.
These are the basic products and primary materials that are traded in international financial markets.
As such, they are traded in their simplest state, without differentiation between brands or producers and, unfortunately, this commodity somewhat restricts prices and the intermediation that exists throughout this chain.
With these two problems, the farmer is discouraged from producing a good product.
However, when the farmer is accompanied, a differential price can be offered.
This work can be done in any part of the country to present excellent cocoa and processing to the world.
Therefore, from this raw material, we have an industrial line.
In this industrial line we offer beans of origin with an added value. In this way, Colombian cocoa beans would no longer be part of commodities.
In Colombia we have achieved cocoa beans of origin. That is why we have Boyacá origin, Meta origin, Putumayo origin, Tolima origin and Arauca origin.
These cocoas already have a better price in the market, which allows us to please our customers with a semi-processed raw material.
How much good chocolate is eaten in Colombia?
Very little, because behind the name “chocolate” there are a lot of blends, flavors that are not really cocoa.
Small companies, artisan chocolatiers, have focused on presenting a good product from excellent raw materials with pure cocoa.
We supply several companies with special cocoa beans for processing.
In short, very little quality cocoa is consumed in the country.

What characteristics must this product have in order to be legally classified as “good chocolate”?
A “good chocolate” must be made from pure cocoa paste.
Real cocoa is cocoa paste plus cocoa butter, which is added because the amount of cocoa beans is not enough to make a good bar, plus sweetener. These are the real cocoas.
In cocoas that are not real, the raw material is cocoa, which is the final part of the whole cocoa transformation process, when the product no longer has healthy properties.
And what is added is not cocoa butter but hydrogenated fats and sweeteners.
That is why artificial chocolate flavors have to be added and, in fact, these are the majority of the products we find in the domestic market.
What presentations do you have?
We have several presentations in beans and cocoa nibs (cocoa beans that have been roasted, peeled and broken into smaller pieces), which are also 100%.
In addition, we offer cocoa paste, which is the raw material to make all real chocolate products. We have it pulverized, refined or unrefined, as the market needs it.
We also have a snack line, which is sold in the retail market, and cup chocolate, so that our customers can enjoy a cup of real, 100% chocolate.
In the cocoa business, there are countries, such as Colombia, that basically produce the fruit in cocoa cultivation. But there are countries, for example Belgium or Switzerland, where they add a little more value to turn it into chocolate. They keep the main profit generated by the business.
What has been the process to transform Colombian cocoa and be able to compete with these European countries?
We have focused on the niche market of real cocoa.
In the world we find many varieties of cocoa products, but there are a number of products that are not, strictly speaking, from cocoa cultivation.
Commercial cocoas are just named “cocoa” or “chocolate”, but they have no cocoa at all, they are chocolate flavors. It’s a very different market that we are not interested in.
When real cocoa is presented, the price, the quality, the taste and the health benefits are innumerable. This is why we have focused on the real cocoa niche, where there really is competition, but with artisanal chocolatiers who are doing very similar work.

What are the company’s main export markets?
Procolcacao has worked with institutions such as the Bogota Chamber of Commerce and Procolombia.
With these institutions we have participated in business rounds in France, Singapore and South Korea. We have already succeeded in exporting to these countries.
Why to these countries?
Because the French, for example, are very demanding in the raw materials they use for processing. This makes it a very good market for us.
We have not exported to Belgium or Holland. They do all their own processing and do not need very special cocoa, which is what we have.
Singapore is another country that needs quality cocoa and demands a lot in these incoming raw materials.
We have exported cocoa nibs to South Korea and we were one of the first companies in Colombia to reach that destination with a container of cocoa nibs and quality raw material.
We have also been able to export and provide a service to small chocolate makers in Slovakia, the Philippines and Argentina.
We have also supported companies that are focused on exporting specialty coffee and not cocoa. So far, we have supplied the beans to four Colombian companies, with warehouses in Germany, which offer these specialty products to the market.
How do you maintain and guarantee those standards required by international markets to produce cocoa for export? What is the strategy that you propose to producers?
That strategy has been to take care of all the traceability with the support we give to farmers, the accompaniment, advice and care of all the raw material.
This way we can guarantee that the product being consumed is of excellent quality.
In relation to the environment, how sustainable is the cultivation of cocoa?
Actually, cocoa is a very environmentally friendly product. This product requires a vegetable accompaniment and, generally, they are reforestations, timber, with fruit trees, or with native vegetation.
The main benefit of cocoa is that it replaces illicit crops. This characteristic has been taken advantage of in several programs of the institutions, with which they can support farmers to replace illicit crops with cocoa crops.
It can be said that it has been a product that has benefited from various government programs and, therefore, from farmers.
Can we have a figure of tons per year in exports?
We are currently capable of exporting 20 containers per year. We may have difficulty in times that are not peak harvest, because production decreases.
Cocoa in Colombia and the world
According to data from the National Federation of Cocoa Growers, cocoa production in Colombia reached 62,158 tons in 2022. This is a small figure compared to those of Ivory Coast, with 2,100,000 tons, Ghana 947,000 tons and Ecuador with 300,000 tons, the largest producers in the world, according to figures from the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO).