On Monday, 5/9/22, we began our morning by visiting the Casanto Miray family owned rose farm. Jorge began the tour by showing us inside the greenhouse where he grows the roses. He explained that it takes only about a year to establish a facility, but much longer until the roses will be ready to sell. He explained how each stem is very important to sell for the success of the business, but that he only makes around $.06-.10 per rose. The farm is about a hectare and houses around 100,000 rose plants. The roses are very cheap to sell in Ecuador, but the price kicks in when accounting for cargo and transportation. Although there are many rose plants in this farm, one rose has to be collected from each plant per month for the business to remain successful. There are also many precautions that Jorge takes weekly (about 3 times) to ensure that pests or mold cannot ruin the crop. If infested, the crops must be thrown out to ensure there is not a further spread. With the mold infestation, the spores can get into the air and onto the roof, coated all of the plants inside. He then showed us the packing and selecting process for the length of the stems and the quality of the rose. Different countries require different measurements, for example, New York typically ships in smaller roses than Texas. Russia was the main buyer for the larger roses, but now with the war there is going to be a change in the supply chain and other countries will have to begin buying larger ones. One of the coolest parts of the trip was learning about the rose dying process. The white and light pink roses are usually used for dyeing, and they are kept in the pigment for at least 24 hours. I never knew the colors and designs that could be done to the roses, but they showed us that really anything is possible.
The next section of our day was spent at Bios Chocolate Factory. I grew up around Hershey’s Chocolate World, so seeing the difference in the way that chocolate is produced in Ecuador was very fascinating. David explained the difference between African cocoa and fine flavored chocolate, and it was delicious upon tasting. The fine flavored chocolate has a set of waves almost that different flavors hit at. I also really enjoyed listening to his process of how he has gotten all of his suppling farms to begin fermenting the cocoa beans to 100%. Most bags of beans come in around 70% fermented and the companies will call that good enough, but that is not the case with his factory. He wanted the very best, and so he spent months monitoring each farm and their fermenting process until it was perfected. I thought that was extremely impressive. Another fact that I loved about his business is that he would make a point to hire single mothers to work in the factory. He allowed us to make our own chocolate, and that was very fun. We had an overall great day!
