Pioneers of single-origin · Since 1929

Venezuelan cacao,
from knowledge to flavor.

Chocolates El Rey is a Venezuelan agro-industrial company founded in 1929 — the world’s pioneer of the single-origin chocolate concept. We make fine 100% Venezuelan chocolate for chefs, pastry artisans and chocolatiers around the world.

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Our method

From bean to chocolate,
five steps we look after.

We control every stage at our Barquisimeto plant, from bean selection to the final tempering. That is how the unique flavor of a Venezuelan single-origin chocolate is born.

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Step 01

100% selected beans

We oversee every step of the harvest and select the finest beans of fine Venezuelan cacao, working directly with origin producers to guarantee traceability and quality.

Chocolates El Rey, historic factory
Our story

Nearly a century making chocolate.

In 1929, Carmelo Tuozzo and José Rafael Zozaya founded in Caracas the second chocolate maker to establish itself in Venezuela: Tuozzo, Zozaya y Cía. From day one the goal was singular — to produce the finest chocolate in the country. They called it El Rey.

In 1973, the Redmond family partnered with the Zozaya family and the company took its current name: Chocolates El Rey, C.A. In 1995 we opened in Barquisimeto the modern plant that brings all of our production under one roof, and that same year we launched The Cacao Route — bringing chefs and food writers to the farms where our chocolate is born.

Explore our hundred years

Cacao origins

Four regions,
four profiles.

Every bean carries the character of its land. From the south of Lake Maracaibo to the Paria peninsula, four Venezuelan zones give life to the finest cacaos prized around the world.

COLOMBIA CARIBBEAN SEA ATLANTIC GUYANA BRAZIL Orinoco River LAKE MARACAIBO ESEQUIBO Disputed Territory N S E W Carenero Superior MIRANDA Río Caribe SUCRE ZULIA Sur del Lago BARINAS San Joaquín
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Our pillars

Four commitments
to Venezuelan cacao.

Since 1929 we have worked so that the world’s finest cacao keeps being born in Venezuela. Our social responsibility program rests on four practices that reinforce each other: a better chain, a better bean, a better chocolate.

Pillar 01

Technical assistance

We support our growers with specialized advisory in selection, grafting, fermentation and quality evaluation.

Pillar 02

Direct commercial relationship

We buy cacao directly from partner growers and pay quality-based premium prices, with no middlemen.

Pillar 03

Agro-ecological management

We promote organic plantation management, with biological pest control and sound environmental practices.

Pillar 04

Tree-to-Bar traceability

We control the chain of custody from the plantation to the bar, monitoring every step of post-harvest processing and manufacturing.

Discover our commitment

“While blending beans is an old tradition, the new frontier in chocolate making is exploring the use of a single type of cacao. We are the ones who opened that frontier.”

— Jorge Redmond, Chocolates El Rey