From sideline biz to Bohol’s pride

CEBU, Philippines - What started as a small tablea business of her mother now becomes one of Bohol’s pride.

Who would have thought that her mother's previous sideline undertaking of selling tablea, the local name for roasted, ground and molded nibs of fermented cacao beans, would lead her to manage her own chocolate business now.

Dalareich Polot, 29, is considered as Bohol’s chocolate princess today. She is the manager of Dalareich Food Products and founder of Ginto Fine Chocolates Corp.

She is the daughter of proud parents Ricardo and Elsa Polot from Booy, Tagbilaran City.

Polot family's tablea business started two generations ago through her grandmother Lola Tomasa who used to sell bolinao (anchovy) and tablea for a living.

Lola Tomasa’s little business was patronized by the locals and when she passed away, her patrons could not help but still looked for her delicious tablea from Elsa, Dalareich’s mother.

At that time, selling tablea was only a sideline job of Dalareich's mother who was a street cleaner just to help her husband Ricardo who was a tricycle driver to sustain a family of seven with her four siblings.

But little did they know, what seemed to be just a family income booster could make Dalareich one of Bohol's pride.

They started with only five kilos of cacao for their tablea.

When the 29-year-old entrepreneur was in elementary, she would go to local supermarkets in Bohol to deliver their tablea products, still wearing her school uniform.

Motivated at a very young age, she was actively helping her parents run the small business that had helped them through rough times.

When Dalareich reached high school and college, she continued to help the family enterprise.

For an ordinary eye, all her efforts might seem to be just simple daughterly duties.

But attested by what she is today, her innate desire to help, positive attitude, passion and cheerfulness have all carved the path of her entrepreneurial journey.

Today, their tablea products are already present in all supermarkets in Bohol and few resorts in Panglao.

"Also in Cebu, you can buy it in big supermarkets and malls and their branches," she told The FREEMAN in an interview.

Their chocolate products can also be bought in SM Kultura stores nationwide, few boutique or artisanal stores nationwide, airports and selected resorts and hotels in Bohol.

Opportunities

After graduating college with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering she got from Bohol Island State University, she decided to help the small business of her parents, designed a new packaging for their products, made a website and went to other provinces to personally go to purchasing offices of various malls and supermarkets to endorse their tablea products.

In 2011, she was chosen as one of the scholars for the 10,000 Women Business Training Program, a five-year investment by Goldman Sachs, a multinational American investment banking and securities firm.

The scholarship provides underserved women around the world with a business and management education.

She was the youngest entrepreneur among the scholars in her batch and the only representative from Central Visayas.

Every now and then, she gives seminars to students and out-of-school youths to educate the youth in Bohol about entrepreneurships.

In 2013, she joined a business pitching competition in Manila and promised her father to buy them a delivery van if ever she would win.

With a positive mindset, she was indeed awarded as the grand winner of the first “Young Women Entrepeneurs Bootcamp” by the US Embassy Manila and SPARK Philippines and the media named her as “Chocolate Princess of Bohol.”

Her pitch is about her dream of making beans to bar chocolates not only making tablea in the island of the chocolates, Bohol.

Opportunities did not stop coming her way.

Another opportunity came in her doorstep. One of the young women in that US Embassy competition tagged her in Facebook to apply for a scholarship in Belgium to study bean to bar chocolate making.

She hurriedly applied for it because that was really her dream. Fortunately, she got the scholarship grant to study chocolate making in Ghent University in 2014 along with the other 15 scholars from developing countries.

In late 2015, she launched Ginto Fine Chocolates, a social enterprise making artisanal bean to bar fine chocolates using cacao beans from Bohol with angel investors from America and Mexico who were her IT clients.

Dalareich said she dreams that one day Philippines will be known as one of the top producers of cacao and manufacturers of fine chocolates in the world.

She said there's a need to support more cacao farmers in the Philippines.

In early 2016, she founded an informal young entrepreneurs group in Bohol called Young Entrepreneurs of Bohol (YEBs) with the initiative of Bohol Governor Edgar Chatto.

The group is aiming to have a support group for young entrepreneurs and aspiring Boholano youth to go into entrepreneurship. She's also the youngest active member of the Bohol Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

In September 2016, she was invited by then US Ambassador Goldberg to go to US under International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) to promote women entrepreneurship in the Philippines together with other 4 women entrepreneurs from the Philippines.

They went to Washington, Vermont, California and Hawaii and met and shared stories with other women entrepreneurs.

Last October 2016, Dalareich was one of the 10 social enterprise awardees of BPI Sinag Accelerate 2016, a business pitching competition.

Her pitch is building a real chocolate factory in Bohol where tourists can visit and learn the history of cacao and chocolate making in the province known as the Island of the Chocolate Hills. She said that facility is now being built.

Dalareich believes that positive thoughts, hardwork and prayers lead a person to his or her purpose in life.

Looking ahead, she wants to see her country becoming a well-known name when in comes to chocolate making.

Challenges

"We need to educate our market, because the Philippines has all the resources to produce good quality chocolates because we all have cacao beans in the country. We just need to appreciate of all of these, innovate our products and we have to compete to the world market," she said.

She said one of the challenges faced by chocolate makers in the Philippines is they don't have the technology locally.

"We need to import most of the machines used in chocolate making. But I believe one day, Philippines can fabricate its own chocolate machines," she said.

"Another challenge is the Philippines is a tropical country, the chocolates will easily melt, the chocolate makers just need to play around the tempering process and storage of the chocolates, but of course if the Filipinos are already educated on how the real chocolates were made, Filipinos will more appreciate artisanal fine chocolates from our own cacao beans."

"One of my advocacies is to promote fine chocolates, where chocolate makers source their cacao beans directly from cacao farmers and work together on flavor of cacao and good variety. One day, Philippines will be known for fine chocolates and our farmers will be agri-preneurs also and not just farmers," she shared. (FREEMAN)