OUR STORY
CACAO FARMERS TURNED CHOCOLATE MAKERS
La Iguana started life as a cacao farm in 1985, selling fermented, dried cacao beans as part of a small cooperative. Three generations of our family helped to establish the cacao orchards that we continue to farm today.
Sales of cacao alone did not generate sufficient income to support our family and so we opened our farm, our lives and our remote rainforest village to volunteers from all over the world.
In 2005 La Iguana Chocolate was born and we started to host hundreds of volunteers for a life changing 10 years.
With their help we began the slow process of learning how to make chocolate with our own cacao, without internet access or books or any kind of resources or machinery.
Through a process of trial, error and an infinite number of experiments we began to make small batch craft chocolate using home made machines.
Following a decade running our volunteer program we made the decision to focus all our energy on making incredible chocolate from farm to bar. Our business has grown into something unrecognisable from where we began and we are proud to be one of the largest employers within our local community.
None of the methods shown here are used in our current chocolate making process.
Things have a evolved a little since we made the decision to focus on chocolate making!
FARM TO BAR CHOCOLATE
Building on almost 40 years of farming knowledge we are in the fortunate position to have control over the full chocolate making process, from farm to bar.
In 2021 our cacao was selected amongst the top three in Costa Rica as part of the international Cocoa of Excellence awards. An unexpected result, it was the culmination of many years hard work and confirmation that we are officially doing something right. A huge personal and professional accomplishment.
Thanks to many years of hard work, and dedication (and some serious upgrades to our machinery and process) our farm and our chocolate have come a very long way since 2005.
If you are interested in learning more about all that we do see our TOUR page for more information.
