From the cacao tree to a local chocolate factory, a bar of Maya chocolate carries stories of tradition and innovation. What should we know about the chocolate and the people who make it? We talked with Julio Saqui, founder and owner of Che’il Mayan Chocolate Factory, to see how chocolate becomes a medium to safeguard Maya culture and empower the local community. 

Q: How did you start your business? 

Julio: I live in Maya Center Village, Jaguar Reserve Road, Stann Creek District. We operate a small chocolate factory that processes beans from the farmers into the actual chocolate bars in your hands. And this was started back then in 2010. However, I have been playing with chocolate since the age of 13. My late mom was also a traditional chocolate maker—traditional meaning, not those processed in factories. The chocolate was processed at home, in the kitchen, and locally. My mom taught me how to do that, and over the years I developed that skill. I fell in love with chocolate. 

We eventually decided to start this special chocolate business when looking for alternatives to the farm. I was a fresh graduate from high school and nobody wanted to give me a job, so I had to return and work on the farm. At that time, my dad was transitioning and told me that one day the citrus industry would die and I needed an alternative. So he told me, let's do cacao trees. I told him I didn't know if that was a smart idea because no place buys cacao. He just ignored me, and we continued planting. Sure enough, we planted 250 trees, and then when these trees started producing we didn't know what to do with the beans—we couldn’t just drink all of it. My father told me, “You have the trees now. Now find out what you will do with the beans”. That's when I ventured into chocolate making and found out what it is, and how it is done. It was a new thing in Belize, nobody knew about chocolate—you could not go to a school and learn about it. What we've done today is self-taught, through trial and error, and I can tell you that we've been making fairly good chocolate. So that's how we started my business. 

Q: What are some difficulties you encountered when starting a business? 

Julio: The hardest thing when we first started the business was that we did not know where to go for help. Nobody knew what chocolate was about, so we must figure it out. Another difficulty for us was getting our chocolate to the market. Our products are so pure and organic that they have no preservatives. If you hold the chocolate, it melts right in the middle of your finger. Belizean chocolate will melt a lot easier than commercial chocolate because commercial chocolate uses wax to harden its chocolates. We just use pure cocoa butter to harden our chocolate. And, you know, the cocoa butter melts by the temperature. When the commercial stores buy it from us and don't put it in the refrigerator, it melts. If customers see that, they would think we make bad products. However, it's just that they don't know the difference between pure organic chocolate and commercial waxed chocolate.

Today, instead of running after the market to sell the product, I bring the market to me. They come to my place, and we have a session with them. And at the end of that chocolate-making experience session, they buy the chocolate they make, because they understand what is in that bag. They understand what is in that foil wrapping. They understand that the chocolate will melt, and they buy it because they understand the quality and purity of the product they're buying. So it took us quite some time. It took us about eight years to be able to bring the market to us, and today we are doing good. 

Q: Speaking of employing people from the community, how does your business empower the local community?

Julio: I wanted to be able to employ people within the community, and this is my way of giving back to the community. We teach them what we know about chocolate making. We encourage them to do farming because I want to buy all my cocoa beans from them, from the small farmers around me. Besides doing that, we now work with a group of six women by bringing their art and craft for sale in our little gift shop, side by side with the chocolate. When these arts and crafts are sold, they are not for Che’il Mayan chocolate but for the women themselves. We only take 10% of that sales from them as administrative costs. 

We are also starting to do catering with women in the village who want to do something. We started providing traditional Maya food for our guests. We wanted to give our guests what is truly Belizean, what is truly Mayan, deep from within the kitchen of the Maya people. Currently, we can cater to up to 50 people at any given time. In addition to that, we are starting something new—we are going to offer a traditional Maya cooking experience. Our guests can move over to the Maya kitchen and learn how to cook at least one Mayan dish so they can go back home and cook it for their family. 

As you can see, the empowerment of the community has a rippling effect. Our tourists now want tour guides, so we have to employ tour guides. We are encouraging people now in the community to learn to become tour guides because there are opportunities. If the tour guide does not have a vehicle, the taxi person will also get involved and get employed. This is the ideal kind of empowerment that ripples out and benefits more and more people. 

As you can see, the empowerment of the community has a rippling effect.

—Julio Saqui

Q: And do you think there are some principles that you want to share with other local entrepreneurs who also want to do community empowerment?

Julio: They're going to have to look deep within what they know best and what they can offer to the world without losing anything. Let me clarify that statement. The Maya culture—because I am a Mopan Maya—is very powerful and unique. When it is one of a kind in the world, you will not get it anywhere else in the world, except within the Maya community. And our Maya culture has many different aspects. Some are very secret and should not be touched, and some can be marketed as a business while not affecting the culture. I want to encourage other entrepreneurs to use their culture. You have a very powerful tool with you that you can use and you can make a living from it. However, you have to be very careful, because if you lose it, it is gone. Culture is very powerful, but at the same time very fragile. Your culture is your identity, and if you lose your culture, you lose your identity. 

You can start your own business. You can venture into anything you want. Remember that you have to understand your purpose. You have to understand why you're doing what you're doing. And the ultimate thing is, will those people who are involved, even be happy? Is it benefiting them? Is it also benefiting you? Is it a mutual benefit for us? If it is, then you're doing a good job. If, however, you are not benefiting everybody, you have to rethink if something you are doing needs changing. 

Our Maya culture has many different aspects. Some are very secret and should not be touched, and some can be marketed as a business while not affecting the culture. […] I want to encourage other entrepreneurs to use their culture. You have a very powerful tool with you that you can use and you can make a living from it.

—Julio Saqui

Q: What does sustainable tourism mean to you, and how did your understanding of sustainable tourism change throughout the years?

Julio: Sustainable tourism is something that you can just offer to the people, but you don't lose anything. Rather, the visitors who come to see you have some positive takeaways, and the people who are participating don't have anything that they have lost. You keep what you have, and you have it all the time. Every time tourists come back, it is always there. We try to keep that culture within a basket so that it does not overflow and we begin to lose it. We sell chocolate through culture, and we sell culture through chocolate. Sustainability for us is very important—we work based on the idea that every time people come in, there is still something that remains the same about the chocolate and the culture. 

We sell chocolate through culture, and we sell culture through chocolate.

—Julio Saqui

But in this new technological world, we have to be able to do some adaptation. How do we make those technologies work side by side with what we have already? Some can't work, and we have to be very frank. Every time we have a new change, we do inform our staff. We want to be able to explore new products, but we don't want to go like the commercial companies in the U.S., Canada, or Switzerland. We want to be able to keep it traditional and cultural, but at the same time unique, so that our guests can begin to appreciate a new kind of chocolate, done by local people, planted by local people. 

Sustainable tourism is something that you can just offer to the people, but you don't lose anything. Rather, the visitors who come to see you have some positive takeaways, and the people who are participating don't have anything that they have lost.

—Julio Saqui

Q: A question that can be basic and it can be philosophical: What does chocolate mean?

Julio: Chocolate, for us the Maya people, is very special. Most commercial companies fill it with sugar, one part to 10 parts of sugar, so that what you're eating is chocolate with fillings that they call chocolate. However, for the Maya person, chocolate is medicine. We use it for many purposes. I was just down south of Belize and other neighboring countries, where I saw Maya people taking three pounds of chocolate in a basket and going on a trade. They did not have money, but when they wanted to buy chicken, they gave the owners the chocolate. Those who received the chocolate then made it into a drink. People barter with chocolate, it's like money. We are losing that tradition in most parts of Belize, but still, it lives on within the Maya community. 

Besides that, chocolate is using rituals. It is one of the things used in offerings because, for us, the Earth and Heavens are connected, and if you don't do that offering through chocolate, you're disconnecting yourself from Earth and the upper space. Thus, there are a lot of meanings behind chocolate for us. For many commercial companies, chocolate is just a treat you send to your boyfriend or girlfriend. That's just how they look at chocolate, but they miss the purpose of why we should consume chocolate.

For us, the Earth and Heavens are connected, and if you don't do that offering through chocolate, you're disconnecting yourself from Earth and the upper space.

—Julio Saqui

Q: Do you have any memorable personal stories that shaped your view on chocolate? 

Julio: I remember that when we were eight or nine, we had to work on the farm. Part of our training was to work hard. We brought nothing to eat, so during one break, we asked our father what we could eat. He looked around and said, “This is where you have to learn to appreciate the environment. It can kill you or make you live, depending on how you appreciate it.” He took us down the stream, where I saw a cacao tree for the first time. He opened a pod and took out the seeds. Then he pushed them into his bottle and shook it. In this way, he made a bottle of cacao juice right there. I have never seen it done before, but these things I still do today. Moments like this bring me to where I am today. They taught me about the importance of chocolate. You cannot just have chocolate as a chocolate bar—you can use it for many, many things. That’s why today we make cacao juice from the beans and make cacao tea from the shells—everything is professionally done. These all are accomplished because I know clearly what chocolate can do for us.

I have never seen it done before, but these things I still do today. Moments like this bring me to where I am today. They taught me about the importance of chocolate.

—Julio Saqui

Q: What do you hope visitors will gain from the experience of touring your chocolate factory?

Julio: We hope to educate them about true chocolate. I have had one visitor who came from Switzerland and worked with a big firm that produced chocolate. When he came to us, he had his jaw dropped, not knowing that chocolate comes from a cacao tree. He thought that chocolate comes in the form of the fluid in a pot. This is the purpose of bringing visitors to the factory. You want them to know where chocolate starts—it grew in trees tended by the Maya people and was processed right in front of them. Our visitors get to appreciate the cost of making true chocolate, not just commercially produced ones. We want them to see how the Maya culture handles chocolate, and we want them to appreciate how chocolate preserves the Maya culture. Besides, by selling chocolate we create job opportunities for local Maya people and help them gain economic stability. We want visitors to know that the chocolate is produced in the local community.

The interview was conducted and edited by Roxana Wang.