If you thought cacao didn't grow in the Netherlands...
You're absolutely right, of course! Cacao is a tropical tree that thrives in South and Central America and parts of Africa. Our cacao is grown in both Sierra Leone and Peru (more on that here). After it's harvested and briefly fermented, it's shipped to our state-of-the-art processing facility in the Netherlands. There, it's carefully processed into cacao powder, cacao nibs, cacao butter wafers and cacao wafers.
In some cases, products may have a country of origin listed that denotes the growing site for that particular food. In others—especially for products that require specialized or additional processing, like our cacao—the country of manufacture might be the one that's listed on the package. Either is accepted, and neither is required by law to be included on our products. (Food items that are required to carry this information include meat, poultry, and peanuts.) We choose to share this information so that you can make fully informed food decisions that you feel good about.