Peru's chuncho cacao draws buyers to Cusco fair

Chuncho cacao, the aromatic bean grown in the Amazon valleys around Cusco, met eight international buyers this month at FICACAO 2026, a four-day trade fair held in Quillabamba, Peru, from October 8 to 11.

The fair, organized with the national export promotion agency PromPerú, is Peru's second edition of FICACAO. The first ran in 2025 in the nearby town of Pichari. This year's dates shifted from an initial September slot to October under a government resolution that kept Quillabamba, in the province of La Convención, as host.

PromPerú brought buyers from Canada, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Argentina and the United Kingdom to tour plantations, cooperatives and processing sites across La Convención. Alongside the visits, the agency ran an export clinic for more than 50 producers and companies from Cusco, Amazonas, Ayacucho, Junín, Madre de Dios and Puno, covering paperwork, product presentation and the standards buyers expect.

Chuncho is a genetic treasure of the Cusco Amazon, prized far beyond bulk cacao.

Why chuncho cacao stands out

Chuncho cacao is a landrace variety native to the valleys around Quillabamba and Echarati, grown on small plots rather than the vast monocultures that produce bulk cocoa. Its floral, fruit-forward aroma places it in the fine and aromatic category: about 75 percent of Peru's cacao exports fall into that bracket, according to the International Cocoa Organization, a sharp contrast with Ghana's bulk-driven record harvest.

The variety's reputation has grown at home too. In July, the national quality contest run by the Peruvian Cacao Producers Association, APPCACAO, placed a chuncho grower from Echarati, Efraín Puma Chambi of Agroindustrias Puma Real, first among all entries nationwide, ahead of growers from Piura and Ayacucho.

Exports keep climbing nationally

Peru's cacao and derivative exports reached a record US$1.57 billion in 2025, up 22.5 percent on 2024's US$1.28 billion, according to PromPerú. Cacao beans alone totaled 113,297 tonnes and US$906.3 million, a 17 percent rise in volume, the Peruvian Coffee and Cocoa Chamber reported.

Around 90,000 family farmers across 16 regions grow the crop, according to national trade data, led by the San Martín region. Agraria.pe, reporting from FICACAO, put the wider cacao workforce at closer to 100,000 families farming some 185,000 hectares; the gap likely reflects different counting methods, but both figures point to a crop still built on small farms, unlike Peru's blueberry exports, dominated by large-scale growers.

No results from this month's buyer visits have been published yet. A December 2025 PromPerú mission in the nearby VRAEM valley had projected business worth more than 5.7 million soles on 250 tonnes of cacao, a sign of how much chuncho cacao can move before the beans leave Cusco.