Watch: The chef leading a chocolate revolution in Venezuela
María Fernanda Di Giacobbe is the founder of Cacao de Origen, an organisation dedicated to educating, researching, and promoting Venezuelan cacao and chocolate.
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00:00The Venezuelan cocoa is very complex.
00:05It has acids, sweets, dried fruits, coffee, tobacco, chocolate.
00:12When you sow Venezuelan cocoa seeds,
00:14those chocolate aromas immediately come out.
00:20Venezuelan cocoa goes along with a huge culture
00:24that speaks of ancestrality, of indigenous roots,
00:29of the Afro presence,
00:32and speaks of a Spanish and European colonization.
00:36We say it is the guardian of our entire land
00:39because it is an agroforestry plantation,
00:42it is biodiverse, it is accompanied by insects, butterflies, birds,
00:47and above all, people.
00:49In Venezuela, we have always called it the land of cocoa.
00:53Those cocoa roots have united us as a people.
00:57We are blessed by that fruit.
01:01I am María Fernanda de Yácobez, a cook,
01:04and I am in love with the cocoa of this country.
01:17This movement of cocoa and chocolate in Venezuela
01:19began in 2004.
01:22We taught classes and started making chocolate.
01:26Teaching classes on cocoa and chocolate
01:29involves a lot of people.
01:31Those classes are attended by people
01:33who can be cocoa producers,
01:35they can be exporters, entrepreneurs,
01:38chocolate makers, and candy makers.
01:40This is an open classroom.
01:43People are going to learn the quality of cocoa,
01:46how to analyze it.
01:49They are going to do the whole process,
01:51from toasting, peeling, refining,
01:55how much sugar we are going to add.
01:58These are five very intensive days.
02:02And on the last day, they present a project,
02:06which is their first chocolate tablet,
02:09which also has to be packaged.
02:10It has to have a concept, like a brand,
02:15and it has to carry everything that is legally ordered
02:18in a chocolate packaging, in a chocolate presentation.
02:25We have talks here and in other schools.
02:31And it is a big meeting of experts
02:35talking about a single topic, which is cocoa.
02:38We have a fairly large list of people
02:41who are prepared with their brands,
02:43and here you can see many people visiting schools
02:47and giving chocolate, candy,
02:51and pastry workshops with cocoa.
02:53It is a movement that no longer depends on us.
02:55It is a movement that walks,
02:57that spreads throughout the country,
02:59and that has also crossed borders.
03:11Every time I have to receive a group,
03:13each group is different.
03:14The most pleasant experience I have had
03:17at the Carvajal School is to share
03:19and see the satisfaction of the people
03:21who come and leave with that joy.
03:24Every time I have a link,
03:25a meeting with people who visit us,
03:27it is very pleasant to feel the warmth
03:30and receptivity of the people
03:32with respect to the purpose of the school.
03:35For me it is a blessing to be part of the team
03:38and also to transmit what I have learned from here.
03:44The goal is not to share knowledge,
03:47because knowledge is very valuable.
03:52The impact it has had has been very positive.
03:55Chocolate and cocoa are very open worlds.
03:58We learn something from the people
04:00who have come to teach workshops.
04:02We have learned from each one of them
04:04and we have put it into practice.
04:12Today there are 56 schools in Venezuela
04:16in six states of the country
04:18where this matter of cocoa and chocolate is given.
04:21Our goals are easy.
04:22To make a school in each state of the country.
04:25Years ago we said it was impossible,
04:29until Venezuelan people got together
04:33and got the money to make the Rio Caribe school.
04:38We bought 36 small machines
04:40weighing 3 kilos, refining machines,
04:42which greatly facilitates the work
04:45when you make chocolate in refining.
04:49When you do things with passion,
04:52with intensity, with knowledge,
04:56with the desire to learn more,
04:58it multiplies.
04:59This is a factor that we have seen in all schools.
05:10As we are a movement and we are a collective,
05:14I think we have common goals.
05:18And these goals are
05:20that the transformation of cocoa into chocolate
05:22also transforms the country.
05:24As chocolate is transformed, everything is transformed.
05:28The most fantastic thing is to travel a country
05:30and see chocolate brands everywhere
05:32made in Venezuela.
05:34I think it is a movement
05:36that takes a whole continent.
05:39Then we can see ourselves
05:41as the continent of cocoa,
05:43the origin of cocoa.
05:45And that has been the movement of cocoa and chocolate.
05:47A sumar, energies, knowledge.
05:51It is a river of knowledge
05:53that goes through the country
05:55and that is germinating seeds.