Cacao has been cultivated in Chuao, on the central coast of Venezuela, since at least 1615.[1] For nearly as long the valley’s Criollo beans have been coveted—by 17th-century Dutch smugglers and 21st-century bean-to-bar chocolate makers alike.[2] Through the years, Chuao’s cacao stock has changed to include Trinitario, but its beans are still harvested, fermented and dried in much the same manner they always have been. The image of Venezuelan women raking drying cacao into circular heaps on the stone patio of Chuao’s 18th-century church is as iconic as the beans’ distinctive fragrance and flavor.[3]
Modern chocolate makers vie for the estimated 80 metric tons of “Chuao” beans on the world market each year—yet only an average of 16 to 17 metric tons are produced annually in the narrow valley.[4] The region’s positive reputation has made it a target for this fraud and other misappropriation of its name, which has the potential of damaging Chuao’s “brand” and the value of its beans.
Would a Geographical Indication (GI)—an umbrella term for a wide range of legal designations of origin—protect Chuao from these ills and provide additional benefits attendant a recognized brand? An overview of the history and modern-day uses of GIs and a brief case study of Chuao—which temporarily held a denomination of origin designation in the 2000s—suggest both limited benefits and potential pitfalls for the use of GIs in this and other cacao growing regions.
Cacao beans dry in front of an 18th-century church
in Chuao. The circular heaps are a long-standing local tradition.[5]
History and Modern-Day Uses of Geographical Indications
Most scholars trace the history of Geographical Indications to early 20th-century France. In an effort to protect the reputation of Champagne and other noted wine regions, the French government instituted a series of laws, beginning in 1905, to prevent fraud in origin labeling and to draw geographic boundaries and other criteria for its proper use on agricultural products.[6] These origin designations were premised on the French understanding of “terroir,” which incorporates both the tangible characteristics of the growing environment and the intangible cultural aspects that have shaped the product.[7] A 1935 law establishing the National Committee for Appellations of Origin for Wine and Spirits introduced the concept of “appellation d’origine contrôlée,” a combination of geography and quality guidelines that has greatly influenced the development of other GIs. As Joseph Bohling points out in his historical study of the maturation of the France’s appellation d’origine contrôlée system in the mid-20th century, GIs can also serve as powerful economic tools, differentiating regional products in an increasingly globalized world, as the appellation d’origine contrôlée did for wine in France post World War II.[8]
In the years since, GIs have come to be viewed as a type of collective intellectual property rights, a regional designation governed by the state that can neither be trademarked by an individual nor deemed generic by the courts. Today, approximately 110 countries, including those of the European Union, have laws establishing some type of GI; another approximately 50 countries, including the United States, have provisions within trademark or other intellectual property laws that operate similarly.[9] However, these laws are so varied that the World Trade Organization’s 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the most recent in a series of international agreements to address the topic, defines “Geographical Indications” broadly as “indications which identify a good as originating in the territory…or a region or locality in that territory where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin.”[10]
Today, more than 10,000 products are designated by GIs. Although these designations remain primarily in the Global North, the use of GIs is spreading rapidly around the world and has expanded significantly to include products outside the agriculture and agrofood sectors and to address issues beyond fraud protection and market differentiation.[11] GIs have become less connected to “origin” as a geographical and cultural location than to “quality” as a marketing conceit.[12] As Dev S. Gangjee notes in “Proving Provence?,” “by providing market-based rewards for producers who invest in quality and maintain traditions, GIs are increasingly perceived as multifunctional policy tools producing a range of public goods.”[13]
In recent years, regions have turned to GIs as tools for agricultural support, food safety assurances, cultural heritage conservation, environmental stewardship, reputation development and even tourism growth.[14] Studies have show that consumers perceive this “swarm of overlapping associations,” but the effectiveness of GIs in achieving these disparate goals has been decidedly mixed.[15] For instance, while GIs are often associated with traditional, small-scale farming and the use of native plants and breeds, this does not always correspond with environmental benefits. Giovanni Belletti et al., in their research of GIs in the olive oil sector, note that reliance on traditional plants and breeds can prevent the use of more productive, environmentally beneficial ones and may lead to monocultural production or stress on limited resources. They advocate for “greener” GIs, which codify environmentally sustainable practices alongside geographic and other standards, but concludes that GIs are do not “constitute an environmental tool per se.”[16]
The same can be said of the use of GIs as a development tool. The first GI outside Europe was established for tequila in Mexico in 1974, but significant interest in the use of GIs in developing countries, primarily in the Global South, did not emerge until the 1990s.[17] GIs came to be considered an act of “branding from below,” and advocates saw four characteristics that made GIs attractive in this context: (1) GIs were originally designed to protect the reputation of products that result “from traditions and collective construction and learning processes,” rewarding indigenous groups for their efforts; (2) they were designed to be “unlimited in time and inalienable”; (3) they had a track record of attracting premium prices; and (4) they had a track record of preventing fraud and other misappropriation of a region’s reputation.[18] These characteristics, however, have not always translated into new social and economic environments. There is currently a small but growing body of literature on the effectiveness of GIs in developing countries, which includes the majority of cacao growing regions. Some sectors, such as coffee in Honduras, have seen limited success with GIs in achieving development goals while others, such as mezcal in Mexico, have struggled to use the designation as a way to foster small-scale agriculture and local business while protecting traditional production.[19]
Reviewing the 100-plus-year history of the French appellation d’origine contrôlée system, which is still considered the “gold standard,” researcher Valerie Boisvert concludes that it is dangerous to view GIs as a panacea: “They protect differentiated commodities; they are neither defending cultural values nor conserving genetic diversity per se, though they might reach these outcomes in some contexts. They are granted to favor market development, not to oppose market forces.”[20
Potential Benefits and Challenges of
Geographical Indications for Cacao
Cacao occupies a surprisingly unusual niche in the world market. Grown primarily in the developing countries of the Global South, the commodity is processed into chocolate and consumed primarily in the developed countries of the Global North. Only in rare instances are cacao beans sold directly to these consumers. Instead, the beans are viewed as an ingredient for commercial production, sold by the farmers through a series of middlemen to producers. This long supply chain and small marketplace can make it difficult to apply lessons learned in the study of other commodities to cacao.[21]
Wine, the oldest and most studied sector in GI research, varies significantly from this market model. Wine grapes, grown primarily in the Global North, are sold to producers, not consumers, but wine production and bottling typically takes place in the same region, adding to the consumer’s awareness of geographic origin.[22] Studies comparing the relatively short wine supply chain with longer supply chains like those in cacao have found that the highest economic benefits to farmers come in the shortest supply chains.[23] In the length of its supply chain, coffee is a product with greater similarities to cacao with a comparably geographically segregated supply chain. The one major difference is that coffee beans are frequently sold direct to consumers, which allows for significantly more consumer education than the cacao model. The coffee sector has numerous GIs in countries throughout Latin America, South America and the Caribbean, which have been the subject of some study.[24] Hops, sold to producers in the beer industry as an ingredient, is among the few directly comparable agricultural markets, although it is grown and processed primarily in the developed countries of the Global North. However, hops GIs—such as Saaz and Auscha in the Czech Republic—have not been widely studied.
Across all sectors, studies on GIs as development tools have found that their effectiveness varies widely depending on the process through which the designation is established and maintained. Under the right circumstances, GIs can protect small farmers by rewarding quality through the differentiation of products in the marketplace and restructure power relationships to privilege farmers and local producers.[25] However, GIs can also lead to increasingly unequal distribution of wealth and reputation benefits. This latter outcome can be the result of intentional influence by local elites or those further upstream in the supply chain or a lack of understanding of the opportunities presented in the establishment of a GI, or be a result of an inadequately administered GI.[26]
Writing in World Development on coffee, Belletti et al. identify four types of GIs in developing countries, based largely on the process through which they were established: (1) large, national “top down” GIs “without real involvement in governance mechanism from upstream actors (farmers)”; (2) similarly large, national GIs in which farmers “have played a key role since the beginning of the process”; (3) smaller, geographically focused, “bottom up” GIs which tie product identity and quality “both tangibly and intangibly, to territorial specificities such as local culture, environmental characteristics and unique cultivation practices”; and (4) similarly small, geographically focused GIs which tie product identity to “technological characteristics.“[27] Of these types, Belletti et al. identify the third—with its emphasis on local actors and local product qualities—as the most successful development model, offering as examples Marcala coffee from Honduras, Machu Picchu Huadquina coffee from Peru and Cafe Chiapas coffee from Mexico. Notably this model is the most demanding, requiring a significant bottom-up dynamic.[28]
GI administration also requires a long-term investment and, often, a significant financial one. Research shows that the benefits of the system come not primarily from the designation itself, but from the processes—such as organizing or marketing efforts—spurred by it. A review of GIs in wine found that “young GIs” offered “lower economic added value” than established GIs and required investment and coordination to realize the value of the designation; a separate historical study showed that wine regions with greater financial resources benefited more from GI designations than those with fewer resources.[29] A case study on coffee from Marcala, Honduras, the first GI in Central America, conducted three years after the designation was established concluded that although the greater traceability allowed buyers to differentiate between Honduran coffee growing regions on the basis of bean quality and therefore offer differentiated pricing, the GI had not yet improved the reputation of the Marcala region.[30]
Taken together, studies of GIs established in the developing world suggest that cacao regions could find some, but not significant, benefits in designations of origin if several criteria are met: (1) the process of establishing the designation includes significant input from an organized group of farmers; (2) the designation is tied to a small geographic region with an established reputation; (3) the region’s reputation is built on unique cultivation or production practices; and (4) the GI is administered as a long-term development tool.
Case Study: Cacao de Chuao
It is difficult to get to Chuao. From the city of Maracay, Venezuela, a steep and narrow road climbs up and then winds down the mountains of Henri Pittier National Park, toward the sea. The road ends in the valley of Choroni, six mountainous miles from Chuao. From there the journey continues by skiff along the coastline to Chuao harbor. The town lies at the far end of the valley, another three miles away.
Chuao’s geography has long been its destiny. Heavy rains in the mountains wash fertile silt into the valley nurturing its cacao trees, and the remote location has offered some protection against diseases that have affected other Venezuelan cacao growing regions.[31] But the narrow valley, hemmed in on its northern side by the Caribbean and surrounded on the other three by the steep slopes of the protected national park, has limited space for growing cacao. The small amount of beans produced adds to the mystique associated with cacao from Chuao, as does the town’s isolation, which has fostered centuries-long traditions for the cultivation and processing of cacao beans, which remain largely unchanged today.[32]
A cacao pod on a tree in Chuao. The characteristics of the pod—
the red color, warty skin and pointed tip—are often indicative of
the Criollo beans for which Chuao is famous.[33]
The families who farm in Chuao have owned this land since the 1960, when nationwide reforms gave the workers control of the historic cacao hacienda. In 1976, a group of workers formed a collective, La Empresa Campesina, to oversee agricultural production on about 300 hectares in the valley. For almost 40 years, the collective has been considered the best organized and most effective of those representing cacao farmers in Venezuela.[34] Life on a cacao farm in Chuao is not lucrative—members of La Empresa Campesina earn about $3 a day—but there is great pride in the cacao beans the region produces.[35]
These factors—an organized farmers’ group working in a precisely delineated geographic region, creating a product with a well-established reputation based on unique production practices—made cacao from Chuao a prime candidate for Geographical Indication when the Comunidad Andina (CAN), a South America trade bloc of which Venezuela was a member, announced an agreement to recognize the origin labeling in its member countries in 2000. Efforts to gain a designation had already been underway for two years, and an application for a denomination of origin label for cacao from Chuao was submitted in August 2000 by La Empresa Campesina and approved in November of that year, making “cacao de Chuao” one of the first denominations of origin in Venezuela and the first in the world for cacao.[36] With this designation, Chuao could legally prevent fraudulent use of its name and build an ever-stronger brand for its cacao. It would allow for government-authenticated traceability that had been first been requested by the Venezuelan Association of Cacao Producers in 1936.[37]
The first page of an 18-page government document outlining
the “Cacao de Chuao” designation, including cultivation,
harvesting and production practices.[38]
The process by which the GI was established some 64 years later did not mirror best practices. Interviews reconstructing the process suggest that La Empresa Campesina was not a leading advocate for the designation and that other stakeholders in the government and cacao trade initiated the effort.[39] The designation also lacked long-term government or public-private administration; a planned regulatory council was never established.[40] However, the denomination of origin designation did offer an immediate benefit to the cacao farmers of Chuao: it attracted an Italian chocolate maker, Amedei, to the region. Amedei signed a long-term contract to be the exclusive buyer of “cacao de Chuao,” at prices above those previously offered on the world market.[41]
Chuao’s contract with Amedei makes it difficult to determine now what benefits were conferred by the denomination of origin to the farmers of Chuao. The relationship functioned more like a direct trade one, with Amedei making significant investments in Chuao, including providing technical assistance to its farmers to improve yield and quality.[42] Amedei also registered “Chuao” as a protected mark with the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2001 and marketed some of its products with the name.[43]
It is also hard to extrapolate from Chuao’s experience because the designation lasted only six years—a far different outcome than advocates for “unlimited in time and inalienable” GIs foresaw.[44] In 2006 Venezuela withdrew from the CAN and the intellectual property protections the trade bloc provided, though Amedei’s contract continued until 2009 (and its protected mark until 2011). It is unclear if the loss of the GI that drew Amedei to Chuao led the company to end its relationship with the region.[45] Certainly, the loss of Chuao’s denomination of origin status raises important questions rarely addressed in discussions of GIs: a respected and stable government is another essential factor in the successful use of origin labeling. Some GI systems develop private or public-private oversight to guarantee the designation on the world market, but the reputation of the government is still intertwined with the credibility of origin labeling, and the government alone can negotiate trade agreements to recognize the intellectual property rights necessary to realize the long-term benefits of a designation.
Using beans from Chuao, Utah-based chocolate maker Amano
produced this chocolate bar, marketed using the Chuao name
and an illustration depicting the region’s iconic production practices.[46]
After Amedei’s departure, La Empresa Campesina entered an agreement with the Venezuelan government, which would oversee sales of cacao beans from the region. The decision limited export significantly, but, in a country flush with oil money, it was a boon for Chuao, which saw the construction of new housing and support for the valley’s other major industry, fishing. By the early 2010s, however, Venezuela was in a recession and Chuao no longer saw benefits from the arrangement, which ended in 2013.[47] In 2012, a young cacao exporting company, Tisano, purchased Chuao beans from the Venezuelan government; they are now the sole exporter of Chuao beans, although their contract is a short-term one and they operate without the protection of the denomination of origin designation that Amedei once enjoyed. In fact, the trademark for “Chuao Chocolatier” was registered in 2013 to a California-based company that does not use Chuao beans in its confections.[48]
In recent years there have been several efforts to reestablish Chuao’s denomination of origin—including preliminary overtures by Tisano and cacao researcher Jessy Maria Pino Arque.[49] Notably, these have not been initiated by La Empresa Campesina. Those behind the efforts suggest that this is because the benefits to the collective are small, especially compared to the value that the designation can add elsewhere in the supply chain.[50] There has long been no clear legal path for the protection of GIs in Venezuela. In 2012, Venezuela joined the Mercosur, another South American trade bloc, but it did not establish the necessary administrative capacity until September 2015.[51] Efforts to reestablish the denomination of origin also met with disinterest from government officials, according to those involved in the effort.
In the absence of governmental protections, Tisano has introduced a personalized, numbered certificate of origin, signed by La Empresa Campesina and the exporter, for each metric ton of Chuao beans in an effort to create transparency in the supply chain and reduce fraudulent sales. (Tisano sells a minimum and maximum of one metric ton to each chocolate maker or distributor annually.) Some research has shown that commodities with long supply chains can benefit more from such private branding, and an interview with a distributor who buys and sells Chuao beans suggested that a private certification can be more persuasive than a governmental one when the government is not perceived to be reliable.[52] But both representatives of Tisano and researcher Pino continue to work for the reestablishment of the “cacao de Chuao” designation as a first step toward providing GIs for all of Venezuela’s cacao growing regions.[53] In addition to the legal, economic and other benefits ascribed to GI designations, they have become a source of pride. As Tisano representative Jhoanna Verhook explains, “Venezuela is for cacao what France is for wine.”
[1] Eduardo González Jiménez, Denominación de Origen: Cacao Chuao (Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentación and Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación para la Agricultura, November 2007), 12.
[2] María Eugenia Bacci, “Chuao: El Caso de Una Hacienda Colonial Productora de Cacao en Venezuela” (paper presented at Paisajes Culturales en los Andes, Arequipa y Chivay, Peru, May 17-22, 1998), 83.
[3] Jiménez, Denominación de Origen: Cacao Chuao, 20.
[4] Jhoanna Verhook of Tisano, interview by author, April 8, 2016.
[5] Electrolito, Cacao drying square in front of church, Plaza de Secado, Chuao, Venezuela, Wikimedia Commons, accessed May 11, 2016, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chuao_002.JPG.
[6] Joseph Bohling, “‘Drink, Better, but Less’: The Rise of France’s Appellation System in the European Community, 1946-1976,” French Historical Studies 37, no. 3 (Summer 2014): 502-503.
[7] Daniele Giovannucci et al., Guide to Geographical Indications: Linking Products and Their Origins (Geneva: International Trade Center, 2009), xv.
[8] Bohling, “‘Drink, Better, but Less,’” 502-503.
[9] Giovannucci et al., Guide to Geographical Indications: Linking Products and Their Origins, 39-40.
[10] Michael Blakeney, “Geographical Indications: What Do They Indicate?” The WIPO Journal 1 (2014): 54.
[11] Daniele Giovannucci et al., Guide to Geographical Indications: Linking Products and Their Origins, xvii.
[12] Delphine Marie-Vivien et al., “Are French Geographical Indications Losing Their Soul? Analyzing Recent Developments in the Governance of the Link to the Origin in France,” World Development (2015): 2.
[13] D. S. Gangjee, “Proving Provenance? Geographical Indications Certification and its Ambiguities,” World Development (2015): 4.
[14] For example: Xing Zhao, Donald Finlay, and Moya Kneafse, “The Effectiveness of Contemporary Geographical Indications (GIs) Schemes in Enhancing the Quality of Chinese Agrifoods.” Journal of Rural Studies 36 (2014): 78; Maria Cecilia Mancini, “Geographical Indications in Latin America Value Chains: A “Branding from Below” Strategy or a Mechanism Excluding the Poorest?” Journal of Rural Studies 32 (2013): 304; Mar Gómez and Arturo Molina, “Wine Tourism in Spain: Denomination of Origin Effects on Brand Equity,” International Journal of Tourism Research 14 (2012): 354; Valérie Boisvert, From the Conservation of Genetic Diversity to the Promotion of Quality Foodstuff: Can the French Model of ‘Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée’ be Exported? (International Food Policy Research working paper, April 2006), 12-14; and R. Teuber, “Geographical Indications and the Value of Reputation: Empirical Evidence for Café de Marcala” (paper presented at the 12th Congress of the European Association of Agricultural Economists, 2008), 1.
[15] Gangjee, “Proving Provenance? Geographical Indications Certification and its Ambiguities,” 7.
[16] Giovanni Belletti et al., “Linking Protection of Geographical Indications to the Environment: Evidence from the European Union Olive-Oil Sector,” Land Use Policy 48 (2015): 95 and 106.
[17] Sarah Bowen, Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mescal, and the Politics of Production (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015), loc. 209; Mancini, “Geographical Indications in Latin America Value Chains: A “Branding from Below” Strategy or a Mechanism Excluding the Poorest?”, 295-296; and E. Biénabe and D. Marie-Vivien, “Institutionalizing Geographical Indications in Southern Countries: Lessons Learned from Basmati and Rooibos,” World Development (2015): 1.
[18] Boisvert, From the Conservation of Genetic Diversity to the Promotion of Quality Foodstuff: Can the French Model of ‘Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée’ be Exported?, 25-26.
[19] Teuber, “Geographical Indications and the Value of Reputation: Empirical Evidence for Café de Marcala,” 1; and Bowen, Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mescal, and the Politics of Production, loc. 235.
[20] Boisvert, From the Conservation of Genetic Diversity to the Promotion of Quality Foodstuff: Can the French Model of ‘Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée’ be Exported?, 26; Marie-Vivien, “Are French Geographical Indications Losing Their Soul? Analyzing Recent Developments in the Governance of the Link to the Origin in France,” 2; and Bohling, “‘Drink, Better, but Less,’” 528.
[21] Carla Martin, “Chocolate, Culture, and the Politics of Food, Lecture 1” (lecture, Harvard Extension School, Cambridge, MA, January 27, 2016).
[22] Gangjee, “Proving Provenance? Geographical Indications Certification and its Ambiguities,” 4.
[23] Oana C. Deselnicu et al., “A Meta-Analysis of Geographical Indication Food Valuation Studies: What Drives the Premium for Origin-Based Labels?” Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 38, no. 2 (2013): 215.
[24] Giovanni Belletti, Andrea Marescotti, and Jean-Marc Touzard, “Geographical Indications, Public Goods, and Sustainable Development: The Roles of Actors’ Strategies and Public Policies,” World Development (2015): 6.
[25] Mancini, “Geographical Indications in Latin America Value Chains: A “Branding from Below” Strategy or a Mechanism Excluding the Poorest?”, 296.
[26] Mancini, “Geographical Indications in Latin America Value Chains: A “Branding from Below” Strategy or a Mechanism Excluding the Poorest?”, 302.
[27] Belletti, “Geographical Indications, Public Goods, and Sustainable Development: The Roles of Actors’ Strategies and Public Policies,” 7-8.
[28] Belletti, “Geographical Indications, Public Goods, and Sustainable Development: The Roles of Actors’ Strategies and Public Policies,” 7-8; and Ricky Conneely and Marie Mahon, “Protected Geographical Indications: Institutional Roles in Food Systems Governance and Rural Development,” Geoforum 60 (2015): 20.
[29] Belletti, “Geographical Indications, Public Goods, and Sustainable Development: The Roles of Actors’ Strategies and Public Policies,” 5; and Bohling, “‘Drink, Better, but Less,’” 516.
[30] Teuber, “Geographical Indications and the Value of Reputation: Empirical Evidence for Café de Marcala,” 7.
[31] “Intellectual Property As a Lever for Economic Growth: The Latin American and Caribbean Experience,” WIPO Magazine, January-February 2004: 2-3.
[32] Jiménez, Denominación de Origen: Cacao Chuao, 20.
[33] Reg2bug, Cacao en Chuao, se Dice que es el Mejor del Mundo, Wikimedia Commons, accessed May 11, 2016, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cacao_en_Chuao.JPG; and Carla Martin, “Chocolate, Culture, and the Politics of Food, Lecture 4,” lecture, Harvard Extension School, Cambridge, MA, February 17, 2016.
[34] Jiménez, Denominación de Origen: Cacao Chuao, 30-31.
[35] Simon Romero, “In Venezuela, Plantations of Cacao Stir Bitterness,” New York Times, July 29, 2009.
[36] Jiménez, Denominación de Origen: Cacao Chuao, 7.
[37] Jiménez, Denominación de Origen: Cacao Chuao, 6.
[38] Jiménez, Denominación de Origen: Cacao Chuao, 45.
[39] Jhoanna Verhook of Tisano, interview by author, April 8, 2016; Jessy Maria Pino Arque, interview by author, April 8, 2016; and Jiménez, Denominación de Origen: Cacao Chuao, 7-9.
[40] Jiménez, Denominación de Origen: Cacao Chuao, 28.
[41] Jiménez, Denominación de Origen: Cacao Chuao, 30.
[42] Jiménez, Denominación de Origen: Cacao Chuao, 29-30.
[43] ROMARIN international trademark database, World Intellectual Property Organization, accessed May 11, 2016, http://www.wipo.int/romarin.
[44] Boisvert, From the Conservation of Genetic Diversity to the Promotion of Quality Foodstuff: Can the French Model of ‘Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée’ be Exported?, 25-26.
[45] Amedei did not responded to interview requests.
[46] Everjean, Amano Chocolate, Flickr, accessed May 11, 2016, https://flic.kr/p/8Mzj37.
[47] Jessy Maria Pino Arque, interview by author, April 8, 2016.
[48] ROMARIN international trademark database, http://www.wipo.int/romarin.
[49] Information on efforts to reestablish a GI for Chuao comes from: Jessy Maria Pino Arque, interview by author, April 8, 2016; and Jhoanna Verhook of Tisano, interview by author, April 8, 2016. Information on Tisano also comes from Verhook.
[50] The timeline of this assignment and the remoteness of Chuao prevented an interview with representatives of La Empresa Campesina.
[51] Jessy Maria Pino Arque, “Comparación del Desempeño del Modelo Productivo y Comercial del Cacao en Chuao con las Mejores Prácticas del Sector para Ofrecer Soluciones a Los Actores Relevantes” (MBA diss., Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración, 2016), 65.
[52] Mathieu Bours and Nico Regout of Le Cercle du Cacao, interview by author, May 3, 2016.
[53] Oana C. Deselnicu et al, “A Meta-Analysis of Geographical Indication Food Valuation Studies: What Drives the Premium for Origin-Based Labels?”, 215.
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Chocolate Class 
