Session 88 summary
History of Oaxacanita chocolate: it is a project which they had started 7 years ago in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca. The Mixtec region of Oaxaca is the region in the south of Mexico, a region full of mysticism, traditions and many culinary traditions. It is the state of Mexico which has the largest amount of indigenous communities alive today and is considered as the cultural capital of Mexico. The picture he shares is part of the nutel cotex which was one of the six documents that survived the colonization process. In this cotex it can be seen the marriage of two ancient kings, who were called Eight Deer Jaguar Claw and Thirteen Serpents. The picture shows how they were getting married by sharing a cup of hot chocolate. It is one of the first pictures in the Mexican culture that showcases the importance of chocolate in the indigenous communities in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca which puts in front and centre the chocolate and the hope their cultures were among the first in the world to use chocolate as a symbol for social unions. So, chocolate in the lives of the people in that region are still important because right now if anyone goes to Oaxaca and gets invited to a wedding, funeral or a birthday then they will receive hot chocolate during those events and even when the person goes/visits the town then people will share hot chocolate with that person. This tradition has been for about 900 years in the region and it is very amazing to see that till this day they are still practising it.
The Mixtec region of Oaxaca is in the south of Mexico, Germán’s community is part of Oaxaca and their region has almost 550 towns, they are one of the poorest regions of Mexico and because of the lack of professional opportunities they have the highest emigrational rate in the United States in the entire country- they have to leave their towns to find jobs in the cities. This problem created this condition of the town being empty, because of which there is a lot of lack of progress. So, it is very interesting to see how a marginalised region not only creates marginalisation but it also creates infinite circle of no progress that makes their community to remain the same no matter how many days , how many times they have it running. Because of the poor condition of the region and the importance of chocolate in their community, for the economic and social conditions of his region, Germán decided to start Oaxacanita chocolate. Oaxacanita chocolate finds in its heart the collaboration between women as there are a lot of indigenous communities where women are not allowed to participate in their politics and social dynamics and current acivities of the communities. There in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca there are some towns where the women are not even allowed to choose their groom. Germán wanted to make Oaxacanita chocolate a social chocolate company that can create friendly environment for their collaboration and principally they collaborated with traditional economic group. As on can see in the communities of Oaxaca there are these groups of women that get together to make the meals of the important parties of the town but when they are not doing this work usually most of these women have the need to go to clean houses or other activites that are not related to the gastronomical part of their lives. So, they decided to create Oaxacanita chocolate to hire those women as they already know how to cook very delicious dishes and they also decided to create Oaxacanita chocolate to give them a very friendly space where they can develop themselves to earn money and also to support their families.
In that region, in most of the indigenous communities and indigenous traditions there are a lot of craftsmen who produce different products. Currently, because of plastic which is much cheaper, the people stopped using the local baskets and products produced by local artisans. Oaxacanita chocolate decided to co-create with those artisans the packaging of some of their products so that they can put chocolate at the centre of their operations and at the same time creating alliances with different communities, helping them produce their own crafts. They are happy because Oaxacanita Chocolate is not just a company supporting women of just one community but also collaborating with artisans of different communities to produce the kind of packaging which gave them the unique presentation for their products and at the same time be able to create community in the same region and local artisans can feel proud that their works can be appreciated in a better way. In Mexico, Oaxacanita Chocolate usually create cooperative gifts for big companies. These projects allow them to create a kind of commercial relationship between the big industries and the indigenous industries, to create and support the production of local products. Lastly, one of their special aspects of working Oaxacanita is related to the production of cocoa. As known, Mexico is considered as the cradle of chocolate because the various traditions and cultures of their territory and they were recognised as the first indigenous culture that domesticate the cocoa tree. The tree originated from the north part of the Amazons but when cocoa started to advance to the north, the people of Mexico/the almex culture, were the first to use cocoa with different ingredients to create chocolate. It is surprising that even if Mexico is considered as the cradle of chocolate, right now Mexico is facing one of its biggest problems not only in the chocolate industry but in the farmers industry also. Currently, in Mexico the average age of a Mexican farmer is around 63 years old and the production of cocoa there in Mexico is around 30,000 tons of cocoa of the 120,000 cocoa tons that their industry needs every year. In other words in Mexico, 4 out of 5 chocolates produced there in their country is produced with foreign cocoa. This is very surprising because right now Mexico is having a lot of struggles in trying to attract newer generations to work on the field and also try to improve the conventional cocoa production. When Oaxacanita Chocolate noticed this they were very surprised and at the same time when they started Oaxacanita Chocolate, they believed that it was very important to create more alliances with the local communities. So, around 5-6 people met Dr. Erlando Solando and in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca they found communities where the people have cocoa trees of more than 100 years. The history of local cocoa was so amazing that they started to attract different workshops for the people- the locals, so that they can rescue the native cocoa species that are in the region and at the same time create good opportunities for the local farmers to increase their earnings.
So in Oaxacanita, they not only decided to create chocolate with the help of the local women and create packaging with the local artisans at the same time they decided to collaborate with local farmers so that they can empower them, train them so that they are able to grow their own cocoa in their own lands.
They are currently happy because they have seen the interest of the locals who are very happy to restore the cocoa trees that their grandparents and great-grandparents used to have in their own houses. Currently Oaxacanita is working with 17 communities of the Mixtec region of Oaxaca and they not only have the opportunity to learn about how they grow cocoa but also learned that chocolate and production of chocolate not only starts with the roasting of the beans it starts with the condition of trees. So, it has become very important for them to train local people so they can learn what type of cocoa they have in their houses. They usually select some of the beans for planting more trees and make more trees but at the same time in their ancient culture the roasting of cocoa in Mixtec region of Oaxaca were usually made using clay cumulus which is like a sand plate used to roast the beans and one of the most important characteristic of the Mexican chocolate is that they usually over-roast the beans which is one of the main characteristics of traditional Mexican cuisine. Then they produce the chocolate in their workshop and collaborate with the local artisans of the community to finally have the products that they sell in their shop. They are one of the unique chocolate companies in Mexico that are working from the cultivation of cocoa to putting in the market the final product which is very important because they have seen that it is so important to make the productivity change because the benefit goes directly to the communities, they do not have a middle person that are gaining much more because of the logistics and other stuffs. They are focusing more in trying to impact directly to the people.
It is well known in the chocolate industry that there are three different species of cocoa; Forastero, Criollo, and Trinitario which is like the most general classifications of the cocoa beans. The Criollo seeds are white in colour, Trinitario seeds are the pinks ones and the Forastero seeds are purple in colour and this classification and the colour of the beans gives an idea of how it would taste. Most of the cocoa that is used in the fine industry (for e.g. Belgium, Switzerland, etc.), where they use cocoa in a much more artistic way, they usually use the Criollo cocoa because the white cocoa is more fruity, citric and has different flavours and the Forastero- the bitter one is much more bitter and stronger. It is good to see that in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca they have found that the ancient trees of their community are mostly Criollo ones which presents a great opportunity to not only produce cocoa for their own purposes or chocolates but at the same time they are trying to professionalise the work of the cocoa farmers so they can sell cocoa to different parts of the word where it is much more well paid. For e.g. 1 kg of cocoa in Mexico costs 30 pesos but if they want to sell Criollo cocoa in an international market it costs around 350 pesos, so it is about 100% more price that a farmer can receive if he professionalises all the work and if he professionalises the market.
Like other indigenous companies, their market is far away from their town, so one of their main challenges in the beginning was to go and find their customers and deliver the products. Since they are far from the city, basically most of their channels are through social media and internet but at the same time they have been able to connect with general public by going to fairs, working with distributors around Mexico, etc. But they have found that the restaurants and cafeterias are their best clients that they have. They usually do not work with big companies because most of the big companies in Mexico ask for a big credit and pays around 90 days after they get the product and have success in their shops. So, Oaxacanita focuses more on restaurants and cafeterias, which are usually managed by one person and they value the worth of their product and project. They are also working with big corporation like Meta, US embassy Mexico, etc. where they have seen that their principle consumers are the people who really know how to read labels- people who are concerned about how their products are produced.
They have a team composed of 75% of women, Oaxacanita usually prioritize the work of women in the community because of all the social problem in their region and at the same time they have been working in the production of cocoa in a cool scale for their community planting more than a 1,000 cocoa trees and they have impacted 12 of the SDGs right now. They know that the chocolate industry in the world is growing 4% every year which is a good way to connect their culture and products with the markets and create an impact within the communities. Currently they are hoping to support minorities through their cultural heritage, through their understanding, social dynamics and through the production and professionalization of their products. They also decided to start the program ‘Little Cocoa School’ for the new generation of the indigenous communities- this project is being received well.
About the Speaker
Germán Santillán
Founder and CEO of Oaxacanita chocolate. He has a Degree in Business Sciences from the Technological University of the Mixteca. He also has Diplomas in Leadership and Entrepreneurship from the University of Notre Dame, the Miller Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University and the IESDE School of Management. Germán Santillán is a Social Entrepreneur, Founder and General Director of Oaxacanita Chocolate, a social enterprise that, through the production of artisanal chocolate, contributes to the social, economic and environmental development of the proudly indigenous communities of the Mixtec Region of Oaxaca as well as promotes, preserves and rescues the ancestral culture of chocolate in the region. Germán’s work with Oaxacanita chocolate has been recognized by Former President Barack Obama and the United States Government, by The International Youth Foundation, Laureate International Universities, Meta, TED, the Organization of American States and the Westerwelle Foundation as one of the best international social innovations. At the national level, it has managed to position Oaxacanita chocolate as the industry leader in the implementation of social programs by the Goula Awards, positioning itself above companies such as Hershey’s Mexico and Ferrero Mexico.
