DALAREICH Polot probably has the best job in the world. She makes chocolates for a living.
Based in Bohol, she founded Ginto Luxury Chocolates in 2015, and I was fortunate enough to taste some of her yummy treats in my last visit to her beautiful province a year later. Her handcrafted chocolates have made it abroad and even won her a Gold Award at the Academy of Chocolate Awards in London in 2019.
Now, Dal has received another bean in her already full bag; she is a winner of the prestigious 15th annual Goldman Sachs/Fortune Global Women Leaders Award, the first Filipina to do so. She tells us: “When I got the e-mail two weeks ago, I cried. This opportunity is truly God’s surprise and blessing. You know how hard December 2021 was after supertyphoon Odette, not to mention the pandemic. But God always surprises us in His perfect way and timing.”
Dal was one of the Goldman Sachs scholars in 2011 under the 10,000 Women Business Training Program, implemented in partnership with University of Asia and the Pacific and IESE Business School. “I was the youngest scholar in my batch, and I am grateful to be part of the program, and everything started there,” she said. The Goldman Sachs Foundation then sent her an application in August so she could write a proposal for her Pay It Forward project. She won a grant, which she can use to mentor more women in her adopted communities.
As an awardee, she will be flying this week to Laguna Niguel in California to personally accept her award and grant at a glittery event which will have as guests successful and powerful women like philantrophist Melinda Gates, US Rep. Liz Cheney, CEOs like Roz Brewer of Walgreen’s, Judith McKenna of Walmart International, Michelle Gass of Kohl’s, Julie Sweet of Accenture, Cynt Marshall of the Dallas Mavericks, US Air Force Under-Secretary Gina Ortiz-Jones, Meta Chief Business Officer Marne Levine, NYSE President Lynn Martin, and TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas, among others.
For a 34-year-old entrepreneur, her successes have been quick but not without challenges. “When we were kids, my mom sold tablea [pure chocolate tablets] for a living, at the same time that she was also working as a streetsweeper.
I was her delivery girl back then, while my dad was also a tricycle driver. After school, we helped my mom pack tablea, or we helped her separating the cacao nibs and the shell after roasting. We would then bring the cacao nibs to the nearby wet market to grind them,” she said.
“I told myself that one day I would study more about cacao and chocolates outside the country. I want to innovate these products. That’s the motivation,” she explained.
An engineer by profession, she was able to go to Belgium in 2014 to study at Ghent University “where I learned from the top chocolatiers in the world.” Upon her return, some angel investors helped her set up Ginto: “They supported me in buying small chocolate machines from outside the Philippines. I’m very grateful to them.”
She added, “I want Filipinos to realize we have a lot of resources here. We have a lot of cacao; not all countries can grow it. The Spaniards brought the best varieties of cacao and so, we have that chocolate history.”
Dal has been working with smallholder farmers and in the beginning, the quality of the beans would be inconsistent. “It really depends on the cacao beans I got from different farms. It’s tricky and, yes, it involved a lot of trial and error, and patience. I need to taste the raw cacao beans first and decide if the beans deserve to be processed to single origin chocolates or not. It’s a lot of work, motivation and passion. For me, it’s fun playing with chocolates and cacao.”
At the start of the pandemic, the situation was depressing for Dal, as it was with any one of us, being locked down and all. “We didn’t know what to do and we were sort of stuck at home,” she says. It later turned into a blessing with doors of opportunities opening for her as she was able to sell her tablea and chocolates outside the country. It helped that she was able to purchase new equipment prior to the lockdown.
In addition, “I was still able to do community projects, especially the community garden projects for our women farmers, plus the Grow My Own Food project for displaced tourist workers on the island.”
Then came supertyphoon Odette last December, and Bohol was bereft of any electricity for three months. “We had to dispatch our chocolates immediately or else all of them would have melted,” she recalled.
But this year and beyond is smelling (chocolate) roses for Dal, as she will be “investing in more equipment to create more innovative projects we’ll be launching soon.” She will be able to reopen Dalareich Chocolate House (which she had to close during the pandemic), “and we’ll launch the chocolate workshop and activities for the kids.”
Dal promises new products for her eager fans and choco-addicts. But first, off to California for a well-deserved award. What an honor not just for Dal and Bohol, but for the entire Philippines as well. Congratulations!
Image credits: Dalareich Polot