The Full Story Of Big Tree Farms Cacao

Sustainably-Sourced Authentically Raw Cacao

Big Tree Farms is a socially equitable manager of sustainable supply chains with a focus on non-perishable smallholder farm produce including fine flavor cacao, organic raw cashews, organic and wildcrafted spices, organic evaporated palm nectars and sea salts. Big Tree Farms develops sustainable supply chains using key partnerships with both International Development programs (USAID, AMARTA, SwissContact, VECO, HIVOS) and local non-profits. Product offerings from Big Tree Farms are 100% vertically integrated from farm-gate to end user and the family-like relationships that bind Big Tree Farms to our producers create a guarantee of quality, consistency and artisan tradition that is the hallmark of our company vision.

Balinese Cacao Beans

Bali Cacao is one of the last remaining under-commercialized, under-manipulated origins of cacao on earth. Historically, cacao found its way onto the verdant slopes of Bali via the Isle of Java. Java was the site of very first planting of cacao outside of its native origin in southern Mexico and over the centuries cacao fruits, seeds and trees were traded or carried into Bali. In Bali, cacao found both the perfect ecosystem; diverse, shady, damp and cool, as well as the perfect guardian; the Balinese practice natural food forest agriculture and the cacao was allowed to thrive wild and free without breeding for production capacity or other traits. Typical cacao in Bali grows under a canopy of coconuts, mango, mangosteens and durian and grows alongside coffee, bananas and papaya with vines of vanilla climbing up the trunk. A truly beautiful natural system and a truly unique and powerful wild mix of cacao genetics.

Big Tree Farms Sustainable Procurement Balinese Cacao Beans

Big Tree Farms, in partnership with USAID’s AMARTA program has created the worlds first 100% vertically-integrated small farmer cacao supply chain. No other company on the market can guarantee the same level of social, ecological or processing quality and transparency from smallholder farm-gate to shelf. For 3 years, Big Tree Farms has been directly training over 2,000 small farmers in over 80 village farmer groups with the on-farm skills they need to grow and prosper with organic cacao.

The Community Central Processing Facility

In October 2007, Big Tree Farms opened the first central cacao processing facility in Indonesia. Unlike other commercial models of central fermentation and processing, Big Tree Farms facility operates as a community resource. No profits are generated from the collection and central processing of wet cacao beans; rather the purpose of the facility is to allow for a consistently high quality product. Whether we are cold-processing organic beans for Raw Cacao Butter, or fermenting beans by the ton load, Big Tree Farms is able to guarantee the traceability and transparency of all our cacao products.

Authentically Raw Cacao

Beginning in July of 2008, Big Tree Farms launched Authentically Raw Wild Bali Cacao with David Wolfe’s Sunfood Nutrition. Big Tree Farms spent over 18 months developing the perfect methods of cold-processing cacao beans so as to ensure BOTH a raw guarantee as well as a safe system of processing. What most people in the Raw community don’t know -- CAN hurt them; cacao is processed and traded in the world as a commodity and this is not always a pretty process. Over 95% of the world’s cacao is air-dried on the ground in rural areas where people, dogs, pigs, chickens and all manner of animals and insects can directly and dangerously contaminate raw product. Frederick Schilling, founder of Dagoba Organic Chocolate cautions against eating Raw Cacao Beans and Nibs unless these items are processed directly from the fruit with the intention of raw consumption. And that is exactly how Big Tree Farms operates its Raw Cacao Program. Cacao Pods are harvested from the trees and allowed to naturally ripen further in the pod for a period of days. Once ready, the pods are cracked and the sweet, white pulp is washed from the bean. Dried slowly in our own dehydration machines, the resulting beans are living, clean and ready for further processing into nibs, butter, powder or raw chocolate. Never heated above 40º Celcius and never processed outside our own walls, Big Tree Farms Raw Cacao is safe, traceable and pure natural supernutrition.

Authentically Raw Cacao Butter

Big Tree Farms Raw Cacao Butter is the pure golden oil of Theobroma Cacao. A truly sensual oil with a smooth texture and a subtle chocolatey, floral aroma. Unlike other "raw" butters on the market that come from large processors using harsh, high-friction screw grinders, we produce our butter with small 5 kilogram per batch manual presses of our own design. Hand-ground cacao bean paste is warmed in our dehydrator at 38º Celsius for 2 hours before being pressed to expel the oils. Never touched by damaging heat, never contaminated by clarifying chemicals or solvents and never force filtered, Big Tree Farms Authentically Raw Cacao Butter retains high levels of nutrients and antioxidants and is an incredible source of Vitamin E.

Authentically Raw Cacao Powder

Big Tree Farms Raw Cacao Powder is one of nature’s single best sources of magnesium and contains more antioxidants per gram than red wine, green tea, acai or pomegranates. Our Cacao Powder is formed after expelling the butter from our hand-ground cacao bean paste. The remaining "cake" that is left over once the butter is removed is a precious and concentrated superfood retaining about 25% of its original fat content. The "cake" is cold-milled to a powder and then is either sieved fine for use as a drinking chocolate, or graded and packed as a coarser chocolate powder more suitable for breads, pies, cookies and cakes.

For even more information on Big Tree Farms Cacao Program please visit us at our website www.bigtreefarms.com,
send us an email in Bali at info@bigtreefarms.com,
or send email to Earth Family Farms at info@earthcircleorganics.com

RAW CACAO PROCESS AND MISREPRESENTATION

My name is Ben Ripple and I own and operate a sustainable supply chain company, Big Tree Farms, based at origin in Bali, Indonesia. Our company’s stated mission is to bring transparency to small farmer based value chains and re-create how food moves from farm-gate to consumer in order to ensure equitable and viable distribution of returns amongst all stakeholders.

Processing cacao beans with raw integrity was the single most difficult project we have undertaken at Big Tree Farms to date. It was a complete reinvention of the wheel because simply put, there were (and are) no technologies available which can process cacao beans under commonly accepted Raw temperature standards. There was nothing to go on, no point from which to start, so it was trial and error over a period of four years and the building (and scrapping) of many locally- engineered appropriate technologies along the way. It was a very long and very costly process with only one real market niche at the end of the tunnel; the raw foods/body-care community.

While it may seem like a crazy notion to spend such time and energy on a relatively minuscule market segment, we did so because it represents a tremendous opportunity for value-addition by small- farmers in a market where their scale would not necessarily make them unable to compete on price.

Conventional processors of cacao butter, powder and paste and their associated economies of scale make it impossible for small-scale social operations to compete. But the flip-side (we are learning) is also true; the production of TRULY COLD-PROCESSED cacao butter, powder and paste is an industry so small and so new that no industrial technologies (even antiquated ones) can operate within the required temperature limits.

My key point I wish to bring to the "raw food market place" is that most (and possibly all) of the cacao products (powder/butter/paste) being sold as raw in the US market at present are (actually being processed with heat, because everyone importing is purchasing from industrial processors using industrial cacao processing equipment most coming from a handful of major processors in either Ecuador or Peru). Actual cold-processing of cacao is not "state-of-the-art" and cannot in most cases be obtained from industrial equipment. It is a tremendously inefficient process from start to finish and leads to high final prices that are not competitive (or even similarly priced) with organic commodities.

Strange then how it seems that with every passing month, bulk raw cacao butter and powder prices tend to fall ever closer to organic commodity level -- I just heard from a manufacturer in NY that purchased a pallet of Raw Butter at $3.75/lb -- assuming the importer (who will remain nameless) was taking a 25-30% margin on a pallet sale, that puts there origin purchase somewhere around $1.80 - $ 2.00, and this is an obvious fraud.

Quickly, before I get into actual product specifics, I want to just bullet point some of the claims that are made with raw cacao products on the market right now. I will then hit on most of these points either directly or indirectly in discussions of the ingredients below;
– Raw cacao beans must be hand-peeled
– Truly raw cacao beans should never be fermented because fermenting piles of cacao often heat to temperatures so high that they can spontaneously combust
– Using un-roasted cacao beans ensures the raw integrity of the processed butter or powder that is produced
– By using state-of-the-art industrial butter presses raw integrity of cacao butter and powder is ensured
– The finest raw cacao powder is pressed so as to retain 10-12% of its original fat content
The above bullet points have been collected from statements made on the websites of the current top importers and resellers of "raw" cacao butter and powder. Keep them in mind as I discuss the various ingredients we cold-process below.

Cacao Beans – To ferment or not to ferment -- that is the question; Fermentation? The actual answer to this in regards to raw standards is that it makes no difference. Contrary to the "factoid" above in the bullet points which obviously was taken from a Harry Potter novel, fermenting beans must be carefully managed as temperature is one of the three variables that can "make or break" a quality finished bean. If fermentation temperatures reach or climb above 50C there is a high risk for "hammyness" which is an awful flavor profile you could liken to barnyard manure in your mouth which occurs when fermenting beans come out of balance. In my experience (and remember that our experience here is substantial as we own and operate the only cacao fermentery in Bali with an annual capacity of 500 ton) I have only seen a fermentation pile rise about 50C. With good management you can attain full fermentation of cacao beans without temperatures ever rising above 115F (46C). Now, this is not to say that Poly-phenol activity is not reduced somewhat through fermentation, but then, poly-phenol activity is not part of a commonly accepted raw standard. What fermentation DOES do is to vastly alter the flavor of the seed from being extremely acidic/tannic to developing softer flavors of fruit and the precursors for chocolate flavor.

Nibs – Nibs are shattered kernels of cacao. Nibs can either be produced by running through a winnower (a machine that shatters the dry kernel and blows away the papery skin) or by hand-peeling. In our experience, one laborer can hand-peel about 4lbs of cacao beans/day -- A winnower can produce hundreds of pounds/hour if the product is roasted. And if the product is raw and simply sun-dried the machinery (depending on its size) can operate inefficiently to produce approximately 50 pounds/hour of shattered beans which must be hand-sorted to remove bits of skin that haven’t removed from the kerne. But regardless of the inefficiency, hand-peeling would at least quadruple the cost of the raw goods at the first stage of processing.

Cacao Paste – Accepted practice is to grind the nib into a paste using heat which liquefies the oils and allows the paste (or liquor) to run freely and easily refine. At Big Tree Farms we are only able to produce a rough ground cacao paste which is only used for butter pressing. Commercial pastes which are super smooth (and taste like chocolate) are created by stone milling or ball mill refining (both of which typically increase temperatures to at least 60C). Colleagues in the Cacao industry say that it is perhaps possible to produce a lower (raw) temp paste with a stone mill but this would likely not be very smooth to the palette and certainly would not ring with the flavors of chocolate -- remember that the chocolate flavor profile we know and love comes from chemical processes which occur during roasting -- Without this process cacao tends to taste somewhat acidic and grassy/herby with high notes that do not exist in roasted chocolate. Strange then how so much of the "raw" cacao paste being sold right now tastes just like unsweetened chocolate.

Cacao Butter – The golden oil of the Food of the Gods! Our virgin butter is processed using a proprietary pressing system we have developed over the past 4 years. We do not have a cacao factory contract produce our butter (and powder) as do ALL other players in the raw market at present. We do it ourselves in two locations close to our cacao farms using the scale-appropriate equipment we have built ourselves with the help and input of MANY cacao industry professionals. Simply put, commercially available hydraulic presses operate at temperatures of +/- 200F. As one industry professional in the US stated: "Typically for us if the press and the liquor preheater were not at or above 200F we considered it to be malfunctioning and corrective actions were taken."

These sentiments are corroborated across the industry. We have searched long and hard for available machinery that could operate at lower temps and with the single exception of a European expeller press which could extract a viable % of the total butterfat, no technologies were available.

Cacao Powder - Once Cacao beans have been ground into a paste and pressed to release the butter we’re left with "cake". Cake is then broken up, pulverized and sieved to create cacao powder -- In general it is exactly the same process in either cold-processed or conventional processed systems -- except for one key point; fat content of the final powder. This is one of the great indicators of a suspect raw cacao supply chain.

To explain, cacao powder is available in two commercially traded grades: 10/12% and 22%. These numbers connote the remaining fat present in the powder after processing. 10/12% is obviously far lower than 22% and this is the red flag; In four years of processing and research (including working with German and Swiss engineering companies to test small batch commercial expeller presses) we have never experienced the ability to extract enough virgin cacao butter so as to end up with a 10/12% powder, Ever. And yet the powders being sold by the top raw brands are exposing the virtues of their "raw" 10/12% cacao powder from state-of-the-art processors. Sad but true, these 10/12% powders are ALL frauds. Another cacao processor in the US states that "[should the temperature of the press not be maintained at or above 200F], the fats would begin to exceed 12% [in the end powder]." In other words, 10/12% powders are not possible in raw processing, Period.

Another point to consider with the "raw" powders currently available is the organoleptic properties. Smell and taste are two major aspects of the sensory experience of chocolate -- and what anyone will find who purchases "raw" cacao powder currently available on the market, is that that wonderful rich chocolatey aroma is ever present -- and ever a red flag of product misrepresentation as well. As stated above raw cacao simply smells and tastes different -- it does not smell or taste like one would imagine Super Chocolate to smell or taste -- but it does without a doubt pack a serious nutrition punch.

This is the story with raw caca. One of the most sought after and least available products on the market. It is an awful shame that many of the current market leaders of the raw community are so entrenched in a fight for market share that they allow product integrity to place a distant second to revenue. The raw foods community has been unregulated for too long and it shows with blatant fraud occurring throughout the supply from origin to consumer.

Our intention is transparency and truth in trade from the farm to the consumer. The "raw food consumer" paying top Dollar for their "raw" ingredients deserves the real thing and we are proud to say we can make that claim. Big Tree Farms is a source of truly RAW Cacao Powder and Butter. We will soon have an independent 3rd party temperature verification for all to see (113 F) and we suggest any one importing and selling raw cacao do the same.

Our customers deserve the truth and real raw value for their money.

THE CASHEW CONFLICT

Full Disclosure: I work in the organic food industry and our company markets and sells raw, cold-processed cashews. Some would say that publishing a critique of the cashew industry is a conflict of interest. I would say that my words and experience should serve as a warning: big business is now greatly and dangerously affecting the integrity and purity of the raw foods movement.

Let me start from the beginning.

My name is Ben Ripple and I own and operate a sustainable supply chain company, Big Tree Farms, based at origin in Bali, Indonesia. Our company’s stated mission is to bring transparency to small farmer based value chains and re-create how food moves from farm-gate to consumer in order to ensure equitable and viable distribution of returns amongst all stakeholders.

In 2005 Big Tree Farms began working with a group of smallholder cashew farmers in Eastern Indonesia at the request of a local NGO. The idea for the program was to aide the small farmers in becoming a model for viable small-scale processing since over 97% of all cashew produced in Indonesia is purchased at lowest possible value (unshelled and ungraded at farmgate) and exported to other countries for processing.

This is a typical situation in world commodities. The bottom of the pyramid is rarely checked for economic soundness and the great result has been a general decline in both commodity and resource base quality as unchecked and unknown losses further marginalize small farmers. Our mission seemed clear; these small farmers needed access to market. Our answer was to create a small-scale hand-processing program for farmers with management and training from Big Tree Farms.

CASHEWS IN A NUTSHELL

To anyone unfamiliar with cashew processing, it should be noted that the process is incredibly labor intensive. It takes on average 4.5kg of cashew-in-shell to produce 1kg of kernels and that 1kg of kernels is on average only 50-60% whole kernels with the remainder being some form of split or broken pieces. That means that it takes +/- 9kg of cashew-in-shell to produce 1kg of finished whole kernels.

Cracked kernels are not yet ready for consumption because they have a thin red skin covering them called a "testa" which must be literally rubbed off. Once primary peeling is done the nuts are once again dried before undergoing a final brushing and sorting. If it seems like a lot of work, that’s because it is. And the result has been a global industry which has been driven to introduce as many efficiencies in the production as possible. This (we quickly realized) was one major reason why small farmers were NOT processing the nuts.

A TOUGH NUT TO CRACK

Our cashew processing in the program seemed efficient until we looked at prices around the world and noticed two major red flags:

1) pricing from our hand-cracking program was 30-35% higher than commercial organic cashew prices
2) cashews available commercially were graded ... ours were not ... nor would it be possible to grade at our volumes

Over the next 18 months we ran an exhaustive research program into cashew culture by traveling to visit with farmers and processors around the globe in India, Cambodia and Brazil. We went to conferences and spoke to processors and trade departments from Tanzania, Nigeria and Vietnam and connected with international organic certifiers to get lists of smaller processors in producer countries and called to interview them on their processing. What became clear was that our inefficiencies stemmed from one single aspect of our processing; heat.

Cashews are a tough nut to crack. Literally. Delicious kernels are surrounded by a double walled shell containing inner "honeycomb" cells of a skin-irritating, sap-like enzyme related to the allergen in poison ivy. This enzyme is called (who would have thought?) Cashew Nut Shell Liquid (CNSL) and at room temperature CNSL is so viscous that it makes cracking the nut a major obstacle.

With the application of high heat however, the enzyme is "deactivated" and loses both its irritating properties and viscosity. The shell then becomes almost brittle and cracking is greatly aided. There are numerous ways to add this heat. The most common is a drum roast method pioneered in India but there are other systems. Those include boiling the cashew in shell in a vat of CNSL, open pan roasting (most traditional), and steam Processing.

The results from this pre-processing are profound. Cashew laborers can realize increases in their output by over 300% on a daily basis. I’ll be even more specific. On average, a skilled cashew cracker using pre-treated cashew-in-shell can produce between 12-16kg of kernels/day. In comparison, the same skilled cashew cracker using untreated nuts will only be able to produce between 3-5kg of kernels/day. That massive increase in efficiency equals a substantial difference in price of raw material. But it’s not that simple.

GOING RAW

Once we had identified the source of our perceived problems we thought long and hard about the costs and benefits of ramping up and following the standard. Our pilot program was producing nuts of incredible flavor and texture, but the difference in price seemed a difficult obstacle. The average for bulk sales of graded "320" cashews is +/- $3.30/lb at country of import but our prices were far higher and were non-graded wholes. And all of this was due to the daily output efficiency of using either heat-treated or non-heat-treated cashew-in-shell.

It was then that we had our "Eureka" moment. A potluck dinner at a neighbor’s home in the small town of Ubud was "Raw Only". Almost all the dishes, sweet and savory, used a foundation of our own hand-cracked cashews in one form or another. The solution was obvious. Within 3 months we had partnered with David Wolfe’s Sunfood Nutrition and had become the exclusive supplier of their cold-processed cashew nuts. The flavor, texture, and enzymatic activity of our product was superior to cashews processed using the standard heat treatment. The crucial differentiator between cold-processed and other cashews was of course enzyme activity, which was destroyed (or denatured) during heat pre-treatment.

For those unfamiliar with the essense of the raw food idea, in 1946, Dr. Edward Howell released the first major work on enzymes and human health entitled, "The Status of Food Enzymes in Digestion and Metabolism." This work crystallized the Raw Foods movement and gave rise to the understanding that:

a) Humans are born with a finite quantity of enzymes for maintaining key functions of the human body;
b) Humans must help to maintain enzyme stocks as much as possible in order to have a longer, healthier life;
c) Consumption of enzymes in raw foods results in a significant degree of pre-digestion which allows humans to minimize the amount of personal stores needed to maintain digestion, metabolism and ultimately health.

Cold-processed cashews were ideal for raw food recipes and products. While more expensive than other cashews on the market, the benefits were clear and consumers were happy with the quality, high raw integrity and social returns of our original project.

A RAW DEAL

And this brings us to the present; a burgeoning trend as of late in all foods "super" and "raw" has brought more and more opportunists looking for a way into the niche. And while increased choice and competition can be great for the market, at some unknown point either misunderstanding or sheer greed caused this wonderfully pure product to be bastardized. Manufacturers, retailers and consumers all hollered for more and cheaper and it just so happened that an industry loophole gave way to a perfect "don’t ask, don’t tell" scenario.

In industrial verbiage, "raw" cashews are simply cashews that have not been roasted. They’re still processed with heat and still have little to none of the enzymatic benefits found in pure RAW foods. The great price difference between industrial "raw" cashews (organic or conventional) and cold-processed RAW cashews, was enough however to tempt buyers into accepting the industrial "raw" specification without ever doing the proper due diligence. That’s the best case scenario. The darker side of the coin involves the conscious manipulation of a market niche ---built on the hallmarks of purity and balance---for the sake of money.

An easy game to play would be to point out the companies offering mislabeled product---products that are sold as a "raw food" and yet are somehow competitive (or nearly competitive) with current organic commodity pricing. That would raise the immediate red flags. But that would mean throwing out the baby with the bathwater. There are most certainly companies that simply don’t have access to transparent supply chains and/or have not had access to this information until now.

The real nugget of this story? Raw does not necessary mean raw. You pay for what you get. Cashews have to be cold-processed and unroasted to retain its valuable enzymes. Raw food should be purely raw food; no exceptions. This goes for all products marketed as raw and not just the cashews discussed here. There are so many wonderful and unique selling points for each product, from unique origin to producer community. It’s just plain lazy and wrong for one to water down the validity of a raw food claim in the name of market share.