Belize Chocolate Company

Chris and Jo Beaumont moved to Belize from the UK in 1999 and initially ran a windsurfing school and boutique hotel before turning to chocolate in 2007, when they began making it in the kitchen of their wooden beach house. Their first bar, named Kakaw after the Maya word for chocolate, launched that December. A chocolate boutique followed in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, in December 2012, and a second shop opened on Caye Caulker's Hicaco Avenue in 2018.

The company sources its beans exclusively from small family farms in Southern Belize, largely run by growers of Kekchi or Mopan Maya descent, and presses its own cocoa butter using a vintage 1970s Italian cocoa press, extracting butter from roasted beans and grinding the remaining cake into natural cocoa powder in-house rather than outsourcing either step. The current range includes 70% dark Art bars in nib, chili and orange variations, a 45% milk bar, caramels, and cacao-based products beyond eating chocolate: cacao nibs, a nib grinder, and both a cacao tea and a loose-leaf cacao tea, alongside cacao-based body products. Chocolate-making classes round out the two-shop operation, giving visitors a way to see the same bean-to-bar process that built the business from a beach-house kitchen in 2007.