About Us
What's in a name? Paccari means nature in Quechua, an Andean indigenous language, and that’s what we’re all about, making the most of nature’s ingredients and protecting and defending her. Paccari is a family-owned Ecuadorian company with a simple mission: to produce the highest quality organic dark chocolate in the world in the most ethical and sustainable way possible. And we’re doing well so far. There are so many reasons to love Paccari, to break it down for you, we’ve listed our top three reasons below.
1. Ethical
Paccari Chocolate is the highest rated "Best Buy ethical chocolate" in the UK within 109 products, by Ethical Consumer Magazine
Producing from Tree to Bar in Ecuador
Paccari chocolate is produced and packaged in Ecuador, a country where cacao beans actually grow. In contrast, ‘Bean to Bar’ chocolate is where cacao beans are imported from developing countries with the rest of the production taking place in the UK or other non cacao growing countries. When chocolate is produced from ‘Tree to Bar’ this allows over 50% of the wealth to stay in the country of origin and contribute to its development. With sustainable ‘Bean to Bar’ chocolate, typically less than 7% remains in the country.
Sadly on the UK market around 1% of the chocolates available are produced in cocoa growing countries. This is your chance to support one of them and make a greater impact.
Supporting Local Farmers and Communities
Paccari supports over 4,000 families in Ecuador. Paccari supports local farmers by working with them directly, not with middle men doing what is known as direct trade. We pay these farmers a significant premium over market prices and fairtrade cacao prices, to ensure they are fairly compensated for their products and hard work. Paccari also supports the local economy in other ways by creating job opportunities beyond farming such as technicians, designers, chocolatiers and sales and shop staff, this also generates important know-how in Ecuador, that is also very valuable for its communities and economy. Paccari is working with indigenous communities in the Zancudo Cocha community, in a project with WWF-Ecuador, paying and supporting them to get the organic certification, Pacari also pays 60% more than local average price providing the communities with fair and on-time payments, helping them to improve their livelihoods and protect the environment. You can also read more about this project in the WWF-Ecuador page in Spanish.
Ethical; Fair Trade and B Corporation certified enterprise
Paccari Chocolate is one of the very few chocolates that not only uses fair trade certified cacao beans, but has been recognised as Guaranteed Fair Trade Enterprise by the World Fair Trade Organisation.
By achieving this certification Paccari has shown once again that it is a company that transforms the communities in which it works with farmers, promotes environmental care, empowers women and practices organic agriculture. The WFTO seal guarantees that members are fair trade companies, which makes them pioneers in business models that prioritise people and the planet.
Paccari Chocolates is proud to be a Certified B Corporation which is the mark of businesses that balance purpose and profit.
Protecting Nature
Paccari only uses ingredients that are 100% certified organic. This means that no pesticides, harmful fertilisers or genetically modified products were used in any part of the supply chain. Paccari is also one of the only chocolate companies with the Demeter Biodynamic Certification. This is awarded when material production takes place in an auto-regenerative ecosystem free from chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers, maintaining an ecological balance between animals, insects, soil, plants and humans and protecting biodiversity.
Our award winning chocolates are a perfect example of team work between WWF Ecuador, Paccari and the indigenous communities in Cuyabeno in the Ecuadorian Amazon, who strive for sustainable livelihoods and responsibility towards their natural environment. The cacao that Paccari uses is an excellent alternative for them: it grows in areas of agroforestry, under the shade of native trees, resulting in protecting the biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest and avoiding deforestation, which is a huge issue in the cacao industry where most of the cacao comes from plantations made in deforested areas, you can read more here on our blog. Together we support these communities in the sustainable development of this amazing cacao fino de aroma, one of the finest cacao in the world.
Find more about this initiative that helps to protect the Jaguar, Tapir, River Dolphin and Capuchin Monkey and the Amazon rainforest by making a click here.
Paccari's chocolate are all palm oil free and soy free, which is one way of disassociating us from deforestation of the Amazon rain forest caused by this. Pacari does not use any cacao from big monoculture cacao plantations that most of the time are related to deforestation caused by cacao. Paccari wants to contribute to keep the biodiversity from the Amazon rainforest and it is what it takes different actions that contribute make this possible.
Compostable package, plastic free and recycling to reduce waste.
During 2020 we started to add to our line the chocolate bars with 100% compostable inner packaging, this means that the material use to protect the chocolate bars inside our boxes is completely compostable with water (humidity) in just 180 days and does not leave any sort of damaging residues. In addition to this all of our packaging is 100% recyclable.
Since June 2019 all the postal packaging used by Paccari UK are plastic free, recyclable and compostable. Read more about doing our bit to reduce plastic on our blog here. This action contributed to reduce waste, eliminate plastic in our deliveries and our CO2 footprint impact.
Plant trees in the Amazon Rainforest in Peru
At the end of July 2019 we started to partner with One Tree Planted charity, aiming to help them to plant thousands of new trees in the Amazon rainforest of Perú.
We gave you the option to buy one or more trees for less than £1 per tree, with every chocolate order. We are also planted new trees for every tree planted by you. Together we planted more than 2,000 tress in Peru. Congratulations!
This was another way we did to contribute to reverse the damaged caused by deforestation and act on this climate crisis. Thank you for your support.
Offsetting all employees carbon footprint and all business travel, planting trees on our company forest and funding climate projects.
We need to have greener recovery after Covid19, so from Earth Week 2021, we decided to do even more to help tackling this climate crisis by giving our planet a better present for Earth Day 2021. We changed to another program, this time with Ecologi a program call Climate Positive Workforce, which allow us as company to;
1. Offset all employees carbon footprint.
2. All business travel offset.
3. Planting trees on our company forest & funding climate project.
Planting more trees than before!
Those three point above do not replace what we were doing since 2019, so we will continue planting trees in a different way, we want to plant more than before.
1. We invest in planting trees by planting one for every order on our online shop. This will allow us to plant many more trees per month than we did before.
2. Also soon you will be able to add more trees if you want when purchasing on our online shop.
3. We also buy trees from our end so our Paccari Forest gets bigger. Only in the first 6 months of the programme, we planted more than 3,500 trees!
Find here how we are doing by looking at our company impact profile
All the investment we have done in 2023 with @Ecologi has now make us worthy winners of the "For Our Planet Award" 2024.
Good Brand Award 2020 / Sublime Magazine
Paccari has been awarded the Good Brand Award by Sublime Magazine in 2016 and again in 2020, in recognition of advancing Social & Environmental Sustainability. Again another step in the right direction.
2. Delicious
Awards
To date Paccari has won over 380 international chocolate awards. This is because Pacari prioritises taste above all else and so only uses the finest Ecuadorian Cacao beans. Our chocolate is made from Arriba Nacional cacao beans. Known as “Fino de Aroma’ these beans are known for their rich, full taste and their fruity and floral notes.
Paccari has also won Great Taste Awards during 2016, 2017 and 2019 the last year we entered it.
You can find a full list of awards here: chocolate awards
3. Healthy
Suitable for All
All Paccari products are nut free, soy free, gluten free, dairy free, palm oil free, free from any other artificial products, plant based, vegan and kosher certified. We really are committed to making our chocolate available to everyone.
High Cacao Content and raw cacao
High cacao content chocolate has a number of health benefits. Firstly, raw cacao is regarded as a superfood in its own right as it contains important vitamins and minerals including magnesium, iron and manganese. It also contains flavonoids with antioxidant properties, who are said to protect against cell damaged caused by free-radicals . Vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B9 and E, essential fats, protein and fibre. This can lower blood pressure, improve circulation, promote cardiovascular function and health, keep energy levels high, neutralise free radicals and improve physical and mental wellbeing.
Unrefined or Coconut Sugar
Paccari only uses unrefined or coconut sugar. Both types of sugar maintain the sugar’s natural minerals and nutrients including phosphorous, calcium, iron, magnesium and potassium, and avoid processing chemicals such as phosphoric acid, sulphur dioxide and formic acid.
Infusion of Super Foods
Paccari also incorporates a variety of other superfoods into our chocolate including blueberries, goldenberries, maca, spirulina, cranberries and chia seeds. Each of these has its own assortment of health benefits but most contain high quantities of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.