AVANT GARDENER

The Philippine cacao industry has been growing but still remains underdeveloped. Some local chocolatiers are trying to change this by offering tree to bar artisanal chocolates.
One of them is Anitu Food Forest, a Bukidnon-based chocolate brand who sources its cacao beans from its own farm of the same name. The enterprise is run by Rogen Montecillo, while her husband, fourth generation farmer Marvi Montecillo, is in charge of their syntropic cacao and banana farm, which uses regenerative farming methods.

The farm has been featured in the magazine before, but I caught up with the couple to discuss new developments. The result is a three-part series of which this is the first one.
The Anitu Food Forest brand was developed around 2021. The couple had wed the year before and because Rogen had an entrepreneurial streak, Marvi encouraged her to develop products from their farm for public consumption. “We must tap on both all our talents as much as possible… I really want to be a very good regenerative… cacao farmer [and] it so happens she's very interested in chocolate making,” Marvi said in Taglish.

Rogen started producing tablea and cacao trail mix. “We discovered while we were selling tablea that people wanted products they could consume right away, so we made trail mix using cacao nibs, muscovado suage, peanuts, and raisins,” Rogen said in Tagalog. “After that, the Department of Agriculture MAO — Municipal Agriculture Office — taught us winemaking, so we were able to make cacao wine.”

After winning the Young Farmers Challenge (Top 1 in batch two, Provincial) in 2022, she was able to attend workshops on artisanal chocolate making. Her winning grant was for chocolate and wine making, but after realizing that she wasn’t suited for winemaking, she decided to focus on chocolates instead. This was the right move.

Now she attends trade fairs, where her small batch chocolate bars sell out. “We want to develop different products.”

“Our goal is to [support the farm’s] reforestation. In terms of chocolate, [we want to] eventually have machines,” Marvi said. “You can plant 12, 13 hectares of cacao [and] process chocolate on a large scale.” 

Their product line has since increased to milk, white, and dark chocolate bars, cacao vinegar, and cacao tea. They received some help from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) for their research and development (R&D), but the majority was done on their own. 

All the chocolates are handcrafted in small batches in the Montecillo home, where half the space has been dedicated to chocolate processing and production. 

Rogen also finds ways to improve her business acumen. The enterprise has been incubated at the Miriam College-Henry Sy Sr. Innovation Center (MC-HSSIC). The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the DA have also been very helpful by offering assistance such as bringing Anitu Food Forest to trade fairs all over the country. 

The amount of production depends on the harvest and whether there’s an event or not. For example, they produce about 300 bars for trade fairs. “We process as much as we can with our small machines and when the events come, we try to sell as much as we can,” Marvi said.

The Philippines has a lot of potential when it comes to artisanal chocolates. “Most countries buy cacao from other countries. [In the] Philippines, we’re so lucky, we can actually grow… ferment our own cacao, dry, roast, everything. Usually, the chocolates we see abroad are single origin bean to bar. It means they bought the beans and processed the chocolate. In our case, we can actually start tree to bar kind of chocolate because we’re responsible for planting it from the very beginning, so for me, that’s what makes it special.”

And thankfully, many people are supportive of an enterprise with forest regeneration as one of its main goals. Anitu Forest Farm is hoping to scale up production in the near future in order to meet client demand. They’re also focusing on R&D. As of the interview, Rogen was in the middle of developing chocolate bonbons. 

“Hopefully, when we have bigger machines, we can start our own cafe, that’s our dream,Marvi said.

“We also want our products to be available in malls everywhere so they’ll easily be available to customers,” Rogen added.

Anitu Forest Farm can be reached via their Facebook and Instagram pages. “We really want to make reforestation economically impactful,” Marvi said. “That’s our mission.”

Next week, I'll talk about Anitu Forest Farm’s regenerative practices.