De'Aruhuä Forest-to-Bar™ Factory Initiative
We began the De'Aruhuä project with the guidance of Globcal International under chocolate expert, Clay Gordon and environmentalist, David Wright who believed we were being taken advantage of by selling our sustainable, organic, and wild cacao too far below the actual value. Together they helped us develop a formal business plan to secure financing. With the difficult bureaucracy in Venezuela it was decided in 2022 to focus on a co-located enterprise under the autonomous Huottuja Government (est. 2020) in Venezuela and the Huottuja Foundation (est.2021) in Colombia.
The new business plan puts the factory project on privately held property (by the crowd) which is located within a Special Indigenous Jurisdiction adjacent to the protected biological diversity region maintained by the Piaroa tribe. The plan eliminates the cacao supply chain and is based on the chocolate factory existing within the forest, thus Forest-to-Bar.
The plan has over 50 exciting chocolate superfood combinations to recreate the perfect "Food for the Gods". Recipes gain their unique indigenous flavors through terroir, climate, natural fermentation techniques, biomaceration, combining superfruits like acai, borojo, manaca, moriche or pijiguao and adding medicinal tea/plant extracts. Our recipes have led to distinctive aromas and flavors that can vary due to terroir and seasonal climate, De'Aruhuä aims to stabilize these flavors in its business development. We will sweeten chocolate with melipona honey which has natural antibiotics, we also produce our own red cane sugar which has more phytonutrients than white sugar. Pure indigenous ceremonial chocolate will also be produced from our wild cocoa.