Photographer and educator in New York.

The large brick building near Coffey Street in Red Hook had always caught my eye—-especially when it was renovated to create double-height 30+ foot ceilings and a correspondingly gigantic set of doors. There was always a bustle of people in and out, and it seemed that some sort of wonderful and top-secret operation was going on at all times.
It turns out that I was right in my suspicions. Behind those huge doors were bags and bags of cacao beans, and some magnificent machinery specially invented to create artisanal chocolates and correspondingly sweet rum. And seeing as Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, what better time to turn my lens to such a subject?

The founder of Cacao Prieto is Daniel Preston, an aerospace engineer turned chocolate entrepreneur. Bringing together his expertise in engineering, science, and business, Preston’s chocolate begins at his family’s farm in the Dominican Republic and ends up in the hands of head chocolatier Damion Badalamenti as he carefully turns out trays of stunning bon bons (some with gold leaf) and delectable bars.

On photographing the Cacao Prieto factory, tasting freshly churned chocolate was equally exalting to photographing ‘Carl’ (the giant copper distillery) and the chocolate grinder by the window. Enjoy, and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Cacao Prieto’s retail space will open in April 2012 at Coffey and Conover Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Through Valentine’s Day you can get some of their chocolates at a pop-up shop in Soho at ER Butler & Co., located at 55 Prince Street (btwn Lafayette & Mulberry).

Cloning is basically taking a cutting (a branch or growing portion of the plant, including a few small leaves to aid growth) of one plant, and placing it in a medium to take root on its own. This cutting then becomes its own plant, identical to the “parent” plant (the plant from which the clone was taken). Cloning has become one of the most efficient ways to grow a plant. Clones are the result of asexual or vegetative propagation, whereas seeds are the result of sexual propagation.

What is somatic cell embryogenesis and why is it important to the future of Cacao?

In just the same way a cutting can sprout roots, other portions of a plant can grow to form new plants as well. In somatic cloning of cacao we grow plants from a portion of a non pollinated flower.

Cacao Prieto and Cacao Biotechnologies are pioneering the use of somatic cell cloning or embryogenesis to preserve biodiversity and improve cacao production of the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic is one of the smallest producers of Cacao in the world producing only 1.4% of the world supply, but the Dominican Republic is also one of the most important producers as that 1.4% equals 70% of the worlds supply of Organic cacao produced each year.

Below is an example of an excellent cacao tree, in fact this is a farmer’s dream tree:

It is a fine flavor, high productivity tree, which as you can see is surrounded by low yielding trees.

In a typical farm only 5% of trees could be considered excellent. These excellent trees account for more than 50% of the farms production.

So many of the problems the world Cacao industry faces are economic in origin. Organic production is practiced in the Dominican Republic because it is cultural. The bottom line is that organic cultivation of cacao make little financial sense. Yields of typical organic plantations are much less than 1/2 that of chemically fertilized farms, and the premium received for growing organic is only 10% more. Farmers can make almost double the money NOT growing organic, and even more growing low flavor quality high yielding hybrids.

Cacao Prieto is changing this dynamic by implementing high tech propagation and farming techniques.

By identifying excellent trees and propagating from 5% of the farm to 100% of the farm, changing nothing else we can increase the production 500%. Augment this with new pruning techniques, high density planting, centralized composting and biochar and we are making sustainable and organic cacao agriculture viable. Mono-cultures are not applied but rather mixed fields of dozens of “excellent” genetic hybrids are used.

We started by extensively surveying thousands of hectares of cacao land in the Dominican Republic, painstakingly collecting samples and tagging trees.

Trees of interest were extensively tested using dna, metalbolomics, proteomics and mass spectrometry/gas chromatography tests to identify high value traits. Examples of high value traits range from disease resistance, to superior organoleptic properties, to increased quantities of healthy compounds for food or pharmaceutical use.

Once a valuable trait is identified in a hybrid, we take steps to protect and multiply a genetic collection. Cacao is unique in that seeds can not be saved. If dried or frozen the seeds become non viable and die. Cacao biodiversity must be preserved by propagating living collections. When a valuable plant is discovered it is typically the only one that exists in the world. If you plant the seeds from a unique plant, you will be getting different genetics in the seedling. The desirable trait you are hoping for is possibly lost (as seeds are produced by mating random 50% Genetic material from father & mother in a shuffle and passed into the offspring). To multiply a single tree into a safe population, cuttings were previously the only method. There is a limit to how many cuttings can be taken from a mother tree (especially old trees) which hence limits the ability to get a new hybrid established in commercially viable amounts in an acceptable time. For example if we wanted to replant our farm with an excellent hybrid we discovered, using only cuttings would literately take an entire life time to accomplish.

Cacao Prieto is pioneering the use of somatic cell embrogenis, a non-GMO technique which allows us to collect the unopened flowers of a rare plant,

dissect in a sterile environment,

and grow out its cells on sugar solutions in petri dishes.

These plant cells then divide to form embryos.

The embryos are grown out in additional petri dishes into plantlets just the same if they had come from seed.

The process of moving from petri dish to petri dish does require a certain amount of labor and to further increase efficiency we are developing bio-reactors that allow larger numbers of embryos/plantlets to be grown at one time.

From each flower we can produce 8000 embryos, each of which will develop into plantlets just the same as a germinating seed. Every embryo will have an identical genetic structure to the mother flower. They are clones in just the same way a rooted cutting is a clone of the parent tree. In this way we have developed a method, a “pipeline” where we can create 8000 plants from one, which are then planted in a field spaced 1 meter apart as a high density- “germplasm repository”. In one year these plants are large enough to multiply further by harvesting cuttings, which are then rooted to place into production fields. From this step we can create approximately 80+ every 6 weeks from each of the 8000 trees.

In this electron micrograph picture you can see the a staminode from a cacao flower on a sugar agar petri dish:

In several days cells begin to grow:

Soon embryos will form:

When our plants get too big for the petri dishes we move to small containers:

When they get a little larger they are moved to the green house for acclimatization before going into the field.

Cacao is entering truly exciting times !

http://www.cacaobiotech.com/

Where: E.R. Butler & Co, 55 Prince Street, New York NY

On February 10th we are opening a Valentine’s Day pop-up store in SoHo, at E.R. Butler & Co’s showroom. Located at 55 Prince Street, our pop-up store will be open February 10-14, from 11am-8pm. We will be selling an assortment of bonbon boxes, our signature bark bars, and our new nut & cacao spread. All hand-created in our Brooklyn chocolate factory, most of these items are already available in our online store.

Bonbon Valentine's day packaging

Nut & Cacao Spread, made with organic Dominican chocolate.

Dominican Republic Plant Sciences Program

Cacao Prieto 
Main Objectives

Organic cacao fruit growing in Coralina Farms

These heirloom breeds can be traced back to the first cacao trees that were planted in the Dominican Republic more than 500 years ago by Christopher Columbus himself, who encountered them first in the cargo of a native Mayan trading vessel .  Columbus later discovered the unique properties of Cacao and brought the finest of the species to the Dominican Republic for cultivation and distribution throughout the Spanish Empire.  Throughout our farm we discovered examples of rare varietals of Cacao including Cacao Porcelina or white cacao.

A ripe fruit laying on top of a bed of drying beans

Like wine or cheese, chocolate is a fermented food.  Taking our cues from the great wine makers of the world, Cacao Prieto has refined this chocolate fermentation process to control the flavor profiles of our chocolate in the best possible way.

Fermented beans being poured out of holding bins

A bed of drying seeds

A small pile of fermenting beans

Organic beans are then air dried at the farm.

Air-drying beans

Shipped to Red Hook chocolate factory

Once dry they are then shipped to our chocolate factory in Red Hook, Brooklyn where they become the foundation for our delicious chocolate creations. Visit our store to buy these chocolates now.

Beans-to-bar chocolate, for display and sale right here at our Red Hook chocolate factory

Friday, February 10 | 8 p.m.–Midnight | BBG Palm House
An evening celebrating Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s collection of over 6,000 tropical orchids

More details on BBG’s site.

• Dance to NYC’s best boogaloo band, Spanglish Fly
• Behold opulent orchids with private tours
• Sip luscious Cacao Prieto cocktails
• Groove to classic 45s spun by WFMU’s Mr. Fine Wine and DJ Turmix
• Pose for leaf portraits by Aaron Birk
• Enjoy an open bar of fragrant juices and cocktail concoctions
• Hang behind the scenes with orchid curator Dave Horak
• Savor icy Mexican fruit paletas by La Newyorkina, bite-sized delicacies by Purple Yam restaurant, Latin-inspired confections by Tumbador Chocolate, traditional tastes from Mexico by Chavela’s, Korean nibbles from Moim restaurant, and more tropical treats by neighborhood food mavens

Buy tickets at brownpapertickets.com

“Unique Chocolate liquor may be recession proof” – from International Business Times – Featuring our Red Hook chocolate factory.

By Sally Turner | Jan 30, 2012 12:14pm EST | Video length: 5min:43sec

Cacao Prieto Organic cacao bags from dominican republic

All of our chocolate comes from heirloom organic cacao beans grown on our family farm in the Dominican Republic.

Cacao fruit pods growing in Coralina Farms

Heirloom Breeds of Organic Cacao

These heirloom breeds can be traced back to the first cacao trees that were planted in the Dominican Republic more than 500 years ago by Christopher Columbus himself, who encountered them first in the cargo of a native Mayan trading vessel .  Columbus later discovered the unique properties of Cacao and brought the finest of the species to the Dominican Republic for cultivation and distribution throughout the Spanish Empire.  Throughout our farm we discovered examples of rare varietals of organic Cacao including Cacao Porcelina or white cacao.

Distillery Photos

Rectification Column

Still Columns

Our automatic distilling set up in our Brooklyn location.