Finding Fortunato: How a Peruvian Adventure Inspired the Sweet Success of a Family Chocolate Business

Dan Pearson was a 62-year-old businessman coming out of bankruptcy when he started a mining supply distribution company in northern Peru with his stepson Brian Horsley. Like almost all of Dan’s previous businesses, the mining supply company soon came to an end and Brian found himself married, with a child, and living in Peru without a job. Through a series of completely unpredictable lucky breaks, Brian and Dan found a population of cacao growing in a remote canyon of the Peruvian jungle that the USDA called “an unprecedented discovery.” With no job and no other way to earn a living, Brian moved out to the jungle to live with cacao farmers. With yet another business teetering on the edge of going under, Dan and Brian realised that the only way they could survive and thrive was to completely reconstruct the way chocolate supply chains work. Instead of middlemen eating up all the profits and keeping cacao farmers in relentless poverty leading to environmental destruction and slavery, Dan and Brian decided to give back as much as they could to their cacao farm partners. The new approach didn’t only save the business. It now also provides a blueprint for conducting environmentally sound and ethical direct trade with cacao farmers while also producing more delicious chocolate for chocolate lovers at a better price.