Putting Davao on the world’s chocolate map

DAVAO CITY — In September last year, Charita Puentespina, the matriarch behind the famed Malagos Chocolate, was talking about cacao growing in Davao City when she heard about the devastation wrought by a storm on the farms up north.

“How could you grow your cacao in a place often visited by typhoons? Can you imagine your cacao tree, so full of fruits, and suddenly they’re blown over by a storm, how can you survive as a farmer?” she asked.

At 85, Puentespina easily appears as a green thumb who harvests a hundredfold from whatever seeds she has sowed. But this nurturing mother of five and nature lover also knows how to weather other storms.

About a decade ago, she recalls, cacao exporters in Davao were facing cutthroat competition. But instead of confronting her powerful competitor head on, she decided to stop buying beans and dragged her daughter on a trip to visit the “slow food” movement and other chocolate exhibits in Europe.

They joined the World Cocoa Foundation meeting in Switzerland, and eventually took the train to Turin, Italy, to attend the slow food movement exhibit. The following days found them in Paris where, after a visit to Notre Dame, they were drawn to the Salon du Chocolat, a world exhibition where chocolatiers, pastry chefs, cocoa producers and culinary journalists gather to share their passion with chocolate lovers from around the world.

We can do it, too

Inside the showroom, Puentespina said she enjoyed seeing the Africans dancing and showing off their chocolate products. But she eventually whispered to her daughter Charisse that she could easily create those products back home.

Thus, the idea for the Malagos chocolate factory was born. With a loan from the Land Bank of the Philippines to purchase machinery, and consultancy and guidance from a retired chocolate expert from the Netherlands, she was able to put up the Malagos chocolate factory.

Malagos Chocolate, a pioneer in the country’s chocolate production, has become a proudly Filipino single origin tree-to-bar company. It has won numerous international awards, fueling interest in the Davao-grown cacao beans among the world’s top chocolate makers and chocolate aficionados.

Cut flowers pioneer

Puentespina’s venture into chocolates was only one of her later achievements. In the 1990s, she became a household name in Davao City for her cut flower business.

Born in Passi, Iloilo province, on Dec. 19, 1939, Puentespina, who married early, already had her three boys when she graduated cum laude with a commerce degree at Ateneo de Davao.

In the 1980s and the 1990s, she was known as the woman who pioneered the propagation of the orchid “waling-waling” (Vanda sanderiana), which used to thrive only in the forests of Mt. Apo.

Her laboratory at Puentespina Orchids & Tropical Plants first reproduced embryo culture for the then endangered waling-waling in 1984, thus saving the flower from extinction and enabling orchid lovers across the country to grow the once-rare orchid in their own backyards.

In 1996, she founded the Malagos Garden Resort, which has served as her agricultural and ecotourism base of operations until the present.

She was already a household name in Davao City’s cut flower business when, in the early 2000s, the family bought a farm lot planted with cacao adjacent to their farm in Malagos and started rehabilitating the trees.

But she considered her first venture into the cacao bean export as given to her for free.

Response to a challenge

“I only did something good as a response to a challenge, and that something good had come back to me,” she says.

She is referring to the time in 2008 when Askinosie chocolate-maker Shawn Askinosie arrived in Davao City from Missouri. Askinosie even hired a helicopter to fly him to Mati City, Davao Oriental, expecting to buy organically grown cacao beans, only to find out that the seller he was transacting business with could not produce the promised beans.

A friend then referred Askinosie to Puentespina, who told the angry chocolate-maker, “I don’t want you to feel that Filipinos don’t have a word of honor,” she recalls. “I don’t know what happened to your transaction, but just give me two months and I’m going to help you.”

With her experience exporting cut flowers, she was able to make her first cacao bean export to the United States. Askinosie was happy that he was able to meet his buyers’ orders before the Thanksgiving holiday. That jump-started Puentespina’s landmark venture into chocolates, with the family’s Malagos Agri-Ventures Corp., the maker of Malagos chocolates, now firmly established both in the domestic market and abroad.

Strong faith

Puentespina largely attributes her resilience to her strong faith.

“Prayers make you think clearly amid your problems,” she says.

She is able to bequeath her creative entrepreneurial spirit to her sons, daughters and grandchildren who are now involved in the family business that she and her late husband started.

As Davao’s dark chocolates continue to carve a reputation among international chocolate makers, and as more dark chocolate producers and cacao bean growers compete in the international market, Puentespina’s resourceful spirit continues to thrive, not only among her children and grandchildren but also among people she inspires.

“It’s important to remember to remain steadfast in your vision and to never compromise your integrity even when it feels convenient to take the easy way out,” she says. “Your sincerity will define your ambition, and keep you on your way to achieving your dreams. And never forget to bring those who share your values and remain loyal to your personal mission along with you on your journey to success.” INQ