The president Miguel Díaz-Canel visited the artisan workshop "La Chocolatera" this Thursday, a family-owned fine chocolate business located in the San Agustín neighborhood in Havana, as reported by the state channel Canal Caribe.
According to the report, this is a project that has been in operation for seven years and operates in just over 60 square meters within the home of Carlos Luis Menéndez Jorge, a master chocolatier who runs the business alongside his family.
The venture offers 40 varieties of products made entirely with local ingredients, including the packaging, and they are sold in national currency in three markets in Havana and Matanzas, the report details.
"Here we have 40 varieties showcased, all made with local products. This is science. This is national chocolate," said Menéndez Jorge.
The chocolate master is advised by his mother, María Cristina Jorge, a cacao and chocolate researcher in Cuba with nearly five decades of experience and the founder of the Latin American and Caribbean School of Chocolate, Pastry, and Confectionery.
The business opened just three months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and managed to stay active without interrupting operations.
"Three months after we opened, we faced the pandemic, and we overcame that as well because we never considered the option of stopping," the entrepreneur recalled.
During the visit, Carlos Luis raised his main needs with the president: more physical space to expand production, the opening of new stores —including one at the Havana airport to attract foreign currency— and the resolution of outstanding issues with bank accounts.
The family is also working on a larger project: a farm in El Chico where they cultivate 14 varieties of cacao that will start producing in about a year or a year and a half to launch a line of their own origin chocolates.
"What truly holds value here is identity; it is the artisanal fine chocolate with a distinct origin, which is what defines this product," emphasized the chocolatier.
The visit of the unpopular Cuban leader to the establishment occurs in a context of official rapprochement to the private sector.
At the end of August, Díaz-Canel met with Cuban private entrepreneurs and acknowledged obstacles and prejudices against them, and the day before this tour, he had advocated on his radio program for the opening up to private investment on the island.
This type of visits to private productive centers is part of a communication strategy by the regime to show support for entrepreneurship amid an economic crisis that leaves the majority of Cubans without access to basic products, while Díaz-Canel's tours rarely lead to concrete solutions for the problems that the entrepreneurs themselves present to him.
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