Santiago Peralta, cocoa expert: “If we all ate chocolate, the world would be a better place”

“Chocolate has been a cult food for 5,500 years,” says Santiago Peralta (Cuenca, Ecuador, 53 years old), while lamenting that it is now a product about which there is a lack of knowledge and culture. However, in the company that he created with his wife, Carla Barbotó, more than 20 years ago, he continues to cherish it as such, convinced not only of its capacity to generate well-being in those who consume it, but also that it can be produced in an honest and respectful way with society and the environment. Paccari chocolates, considered among the best in the world, as confirmed by the dozens of International Chocolate Awards received throughout its history (it won eight in the last edition alone), are also the most ethical in the world among commercial chocolates, according to the British organization Ethical Consumer. When it comes to making it, Peralta does not hide his red lines: “Milk is never added to chocolate and its main ingredient must be cocoa. Calling something that has 15% cocoa chocolate is a fraud.”More informationPassing through Madrid, where he travels four or five times a year, he has an iced coffee for breakfast at Bô Coffee and takes the opportunity to taste some of the bars he carries in his backpack. “This one has toffee, vanilla, meringue… it looks like a café con leche,” he says of the Esmeraldas 60% chocolate. Immediately after, he opens a “Raw 70%”, one of the most awarded bars, and when he tastes it he notices notes of wood, nuts, “red fruit, but well muted.” It is a small demonstration that chocolate, the good kind, the kind made with fine-aromatic cocoa, is not a product of flat flavour, but full of nuances determined by its origin, variety or terroir… as if it were wine. “We only look at the price without distinguishing what a Vega Sicilia is because it has not been explained enough,” making the parallel with the drink, with which he finds many similarities. There is ignorance and he preaches to create a chocolate culture, but he admits that in recent years, the development of the bean to bar movement —the process of making chocolate that he controls from the bean to the bar— has encouraged people to start looking at cocoa in a different way. “It is important that someone tells you about the origin of a cocoa and to take it with respect for the quality that this product promises.” Understanding the history of Paccari and his philosophy around the responsible production of cocoa —he works with organizations such as WWF— is to go back to Peralta’s childhood, raised in the countryside and where he helped from childhood to take care of animals, sow and harvest. “They never used agrotoxins and did not join the green revolution,” he says about his family and their view on agriculture. He also remembers that they never ate anything processed and that they always had a “sweet tooth.” His studies took him to Europe: first to Germany, where he highlights the “austere” character; then to Portugal, to the Lisbon of the nineties, a city where he felt resistance to change and sadness. “I returned to Ecuador to escape from that and I realized that everyone there embraced the ideas,” he says. After exporting organic products with his wife, they began to work with farmers hand in hand to certify crops and improve the quality of the cocoa and farms. At the beginning of Paccari, there were no chocolate bars, which arrived three years later, but only nibs — pieces of roasted cocoa — that Peralta and Barbotó exported to England, Germany and the United States. Now they sell their products in 40 countries and have gone from working with 50 farmers at the beginning to involving some 3,000 families in production.Paccari bars. INMA FLORESIn these more than 20 years, Peralta has made a name for himself not only in chocolate, but as an entrepreneur of a brand that generates added value and a positive impact on the community in which it has been developed, helping to change the paradigm of cocoa production in Ecuador. His example is studied at Harvard. “Our criteria is not to help poor children. Charity is one thing and changing the structure of a country is another,” says the businessman, who is very critical of what is known as “fair trade.” “Fair trade pays 5% more to farmers. We pay 75% more,” he adds, without specifying figures. He also specifies that 50% of the value of one of the chocolate bars they produce returns to the country of origin. It is precisely to these repercussions that decisions as consumers have that the general manager of the brand appeals when asked why we ask ourselves certain questions on the supermarket shelf. “85% of cocoa comes from people who earn less than 25 euros per family per month,” he says. Continuing the conversation about the practices of the cocoa industry, Peralta does not overlook the current situation of this raw material, which has sharply increased in price in recent months due to scarcity. In January of this year, the cost per ton was around 4,200 US dollars, but in April it surpassed the 12,000 barrier, marking a historic record. A crisis situation that Peralta attributes to climate change in conjunction with the lack of respect for production processes and nature. “The mass industry has caused people to neglect cocoa trees. If a drought comes and affects specimens that are already old and tired, it finishes them off. Cocoa is very sensitive to climacteric production. We are paying for the cheap chocolate of the last 30 years today with the real risk that cocoa will become extinct. Nobody plants cocoa because nobody pays for it. “Chocolate will cost 30% more this Christmas,” he explains. He also says that he has raised the price of his bars. He has more than 60 varieties that are sold in Spain at 3.25 euros in large stores such as El Corte Inglés and specialist shops such as Club del Chocolate. He does not want his chocolates to be an “unattainable product that can be bought in London for 25 pounds” and invites consumers to change their relationship with this sweet, to sit down and “value” it and pay tribute to it. “Chocolate awakens unique sensations, the best side of the human being. If we all ate half a bar of chocolate, the world would be a better place.”You can follow EL PAÍS Gastro on Instagram and X.