Ecuadorian and UK cacao firm, Pachakuti, reports online success

A fast-rising cocoa business, Pachakuti Cacao, has reported strong interest in its Ecuador-sourced premium ranges that have expanded from a wholesale business into wider retailing, writes Neill Barston.

The firm, based in the North West of England, as well as working directly with indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon, has built-up a notable presence with online sales.

Its founders, Steve Gravener, based in the UK and Roman Belkowski, who has been in South America for the past decade, where he has handled harvesting, fermentation and drying, and maintaining long-standing relationships at source.

As the company explained, it has rapidly evolved from its wholesale origins, and has also seen web-based success via AmazonUK. It  sells ceremonial-grade cacao made from heirloom Arriba Nacional beans, available in a range of sizes for regular or occasional use, alongside traditionally sourced guayusa tea and palo santo.

Steve commented: “We’d already been supplying cacao before we ever put it in front of customers directly. By the time we launched online, we knew what we had because we’d seen how it performed, how consistent it was and how people responded to it.

“The early response through our website and Amazon has backed that up. It gives us confidence to grow, because it isn’t built on guesswork.”

Moreover, as the company noted, its pure cacao is sold as a pure product, and is typically prepared as a warm drink rather than eaten as chocolate, often used in wellness and ritual settings.

It is grown using chakra farming, an indigenous agroforestry system that combines cacao with fruit trees, medicinal plants and native vegetation rather than single-crop planting. This influences both yield and seasonality and is one of the reasons supply remains closely managed.

Since launching its retail offer through its website and Amazon UK, Pachakuti Cacao has seen early uptake, including repeat orders from customers across the UK, while still in the early stages of trading on the platform.

Roman enthused that the business has continued to show notable growth in spite of wider challenges in the global sector.

He remarked: “Being present in Ecuador allows us to retain control over quality in a way that isn’t possible through intermediaries.

“Once middlemen get involved, quality drops fast. Being here means we oversee the process from harvest through fermentation and drying, and we work with the same associations year after year. That limits how much we can produce, but it also means we know exactly what’s in every batch.”

Looking ahead, the founders said growth will continue to be shaped by what they have already learned on the ground and in the UK.

Steve added: “We’re not trying to prove the product now. That work has been done over time. The focus is on making it easier for people to find us in the UK, while keeping the same standards that got us here in the first place.”