Cacao News & Events

Cacao News & Events

August 6, 2024

Mayaguez, Puerto Rico

Cuerda Verdes Cacao Nurseries (CVCN) is pleased to announce that construction has begun on the first of six shade and greenhouses on the 23-acre Mayaguez CVCN site.  The contractor is Empresas Agricolas San Pueblo https://www.empresasagricolassanpablo.com/  who will also construct smaller shade houses to support cacao farm development for the Cacao Reforestation Fund with a mission to plant 5 million cacao trees.

In addition, CVCN’s Advisory Board has decided to purchase and adopt the Ellepot propagation process. Ellepot | A sustainable solution for propagation  This system will reduce labor costs by 30% by by keeping the seedlings in the same propagation trays from germination to delivery to the farm, shorten propagation time by 40%, and is capable of filling 1000 substrate sleeves an hour.  Ellepot uses a fertilized substrate eliminating the need for CVCN to produce organic soil which heretofore was estimated to be 50,000 pounds of soil per month.  By adopting the Ellepot system CVCN can expect to reach an output capacity of 50,000 trees per month by the end of the year.

And, CVCN has begun planting cacao and plantains on the 20-acre site to provide grafting material for the cacao nursery and income for the operation from the plantains.   

Cuerdas Verdes Cacao Farm Services Closes First Managed Cacao Forest

  • Green Acres R&D Processors and Hacienda JeanMarie Announce the Formation of the First Mega Nursery for Grafted Cacao Trees. San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA, April 28, 2023

  • Hacienda JeanMarie LLC (“HJM”) and Green Acres R&D Processors LLC (“GARD”) have established Cuerdas Verde Cacao Nurseries LLC (“CVCN”) as the largest grafted cacao tree nursery of its kind to supply planting material to the cacao farmers of Puerto Rico.  CVCN will continue to provide HJM customers with grafted trees from the JeanMarie Collection while the new 1-Acre shade house is erected on the new site in Mayaguez scheduled to be operational by July.  CVCN plans to have four mega nurseries to supply 2.4 million trees per year by 2025. This CVCN business combination is capitalized at $3.2 million.

  • HJM’s founder, Juan Echevarria and Chief Propagation Officer at CVCN commented, “I developed the JeanMarie Collection over ten years ago working with the USDA Tropical Research Station in Mayaguez and have been providing grafted trees from our nursery in Aguada to local farmers. By establishing CVCN we will now be able to provide enough trees to meet the growing demand and realize my vision of having a world class cacao industry in Puerto Rico.”

  • GARD’s CEO, Stephen Inglis, reported, “we are thrilled and honored to have Juan and his HJM nursery team as founding partners of CVCN.  The JeanMarie Collection is arguably the finest cacao strain to make chocolate.  Our mission is to supply enough grafted trees from this strain to make cacao Puerto Rico’s most valuable export crop.”

  • About Hacienda JeanMarie: Our goal is to cultivate, produce and export the world’s best organic cocoa in Puerto Rico.  HJM is an integrated chocolate maker that runs its own cacao farms and has been supporting local farmers for years through educational seminars, providing grafted trees from their nursery, and buying all the harvested pods from the farmers they support for fermentation.  The processed beans are used to make their award-winning chocolate and exporting their premium beans to chocolate makers. https://jeanmariechocolat.com/

  • About Green Acres R&D Processors: GARD was founded to service and support the growth of the Puerto Rico cacao industry and advance the cause through research on the best growing and processing practices to extract the maximum economic benefit from cacao, with an overarching goal of fostering a world class cacao industry.  https://www.cbx.market/

  • Drew Cutkomp made his debut as a Master of Cacao Ceremonies at El Morro in Old San Juan April 14th and 15th .  By all accounts it was a wonderful evening and enjoyed by all.

  • March 24, 2023, JeanMarie Chocolate is pleased to announce that has begun making chocolate at their new manufacturing facility in Anasco.  Be sure to come to their both at the Coffee & Chocolate Expo taking place at the Puerto Rico Convention Center on March 25-26 2023.  https://hacienda-jeanmarie-chocolat.business.site/

  • October 10th, 2022, Green Acres R&D Processor LLC is pleased to announce that Perfecto Andujar as the first Advisory Board member. Perfecto aka Fidty and his wife Terese have been growing cacao and making chocolate for friends and family in Las Marias for over 40 years. Fidty brings a wealth of intergenerational cacao knowledge to the CBX community and are honored to have him on the Board.

  • August 16th CBX completed the first Repo placement for twelve tons of cacao beans for Hacienda Jean Marie Chocolat on a peer-2-peer basis will be repurchased on or before August 16th 2023 at a 20% premium. One of the participants in the CBX Repo was Paul Grossman who commented “I have enjoyed JeanMarie Chocolat as a customer for the past couple years and was pleased to participate in the first CBX Repo contract to fund the new chocolate factory in Anesco.”
    Another participant in the CBX JeanMarie Repo offering was Chris Myer who remarked, “the CBX Repo contract provides an innovative approach to funding the capital needs for JeanMarie Chocolat’s manufacturing facility. We look forward to future issues from CBX and participating in Puerto Rico’s cacao capital market.