Janett and Erika Liriano grew up in Queens, the daughters of Dominican immigrants who pushed them to dream big.Their encouragement paid off: by the time they were in their late 20s, Janett had been named a Forbes 30 Under 30 Listmaker and was the chief of staff at a biopharmaceutical firm; younger sister Erika was making a name for herself in venture capital.But something was missing.“We were both comfortable but not happy with our jobs,” Janett said.“I felt unfulfilled and anxiously wanted to move forward.

” But towards what, she wasn’t sure.In early 2019, the family gathered at Janett’s Kew Gardens home to try a Dominican cacao and coffee drink her dad had made.Soon the sisters were daydreaming aloud about starting a chocolate company in the Dominican Republic – until Janett lamented she was much too busy at work for a side hustle.“That’s when our parents were like, “Why don’t you commit to your own projects?’” Janett remembered.“‘With how hard you both work for others, you could change the country if you just chose to focus on doing what you really believe in.

’”Janett and Erika had grown up hearing about their parents’ hardscrabble lives in the Dominican Republic.The girls’ maternal grandparents had worked as farmhands, and their father’s family still owned a small cocoa farm.The country was not poor, their parents’ told them, “but rather there was a lack of real value being created in a way that translated into opportunity for everyone”, Janett said.The Dominican Republic produces about 60% of the world’s organic cacao, but the vast majority of its export is raw beans.That means most of the $8bn profit created by the crop is made in the countries where the chocolate is finished – places like Belgium, Germany and the United States – while many Dominican farmers struggle to make ends meet.

Janett and Erika felt sure they could apply their experience and expertise to the cacao industry, but had reservations about setting up shop in the DR.“We didn’t know much about the country from a business perspective,” Janett said.Making the leap would also require leaving their lucrative jobs.“There was a big part of me that was like, ‘I’ve got decent money, I’ve got my savings,’” Erika said.“‘Am I really about to go to the DR and just, like, hope it happens?’”The girls’ parents reminded them that they had done the same thing when they moved to the US.

What’s more, they offered to join their daughters in the Dominican Republic.What followed was the ultimate “pandemic pivot”, Janett said.In 2020, the sisters left their jobs and, with their parents, moved to the Dominican Republic – bouncing around Airbnbs all over the country – to learn everything they could about the cacao industry there.“We spent months following my dad around, sitting on the back of a pickup truck, trying to understand what was happening in the supply chain,” Janett said.They discovered that farmers typically sold their beans to the first tipo con un camión – guy with a truck – who showed up and that these buyers often took advantage of the farmers by paying low prices, delaying payments or even using rigged scales.

It’s a phenomenon seen across the industry – and not just in the Dominican Republic – said Antonie Fountain, the managing director of the Voice Network, a coalition of NGOs and trade unions.“We call farmers ‘price-takers’,” he said.In an extremely volatile market subject to climate shocks, “whatever the world market pays is what the farmers get, unless you find yourself a truly dedicated buyer”.The Lirianos decided they would be that dedicated buyer.After months of talking to farmers, studying up on the industry and working with a designer to develop the brand, the sisters launched Inaru Chocolate.

Inaru – a Taino word meaning fertility or creation – bills itself as the country’s first vertically integrated cacao company.Rather than the informal “guy with a truck” model, it contracts directly with farmers and pays purchasing agents a fixed rate, eliminating any incentive to undercut the farmers, Janett said.The company pays its farmers 3% of every product sold, which means the company ends up paying about 30 to 50% more than what most other buyers in the country do, Janett said.That allows farmers to invest in their land and farming practices, something that benefits the environment and the quality of the cacao, Janett said.And higher-quality cocoa means higher profits.

“Rather than treating farmers as distant suppliers, Inaru views them as genuine partners in the brand’s success,” said Jennifer Gomez, chief marketing officer of the Founder’s Pool, which has supported the company,“They’ve replaced a fragmented supply chain with a transparent, family-rooted model,”The sisters knew the real money, both for them and the farmers, would come from high-end chocolate produced inside the country: while a ton of cacao beans might fetch $30,000 on the international market, a ton of finished chocolate can go for more than three times that amount, Janett said,So, in 2023, Janett and Erika, the company’s CEO and chief innovation officer, respectively, opened a 7,000-sq-ft chocolate factory outside Santo Domingo,Finding land for it meant navigating reams of paperwork, getting ministerial approval and convincing the general manager of an industrial park to carve out a sliver between two warehouses – officially a parking lot.

“To this day we are drawn in by hand on the official map of the park,” Janett said.Today, she said the factory employs 35 people.Another benefit of producing the chocolate domestically? Bringing the fruits of their labor to the farmers, some of whom had never tried their own finished product.“Being able to really see the impact and connection between the land, the people, the food and the politics on a very real, day-to-day level has been so reaffirming,” said Erika.This novel business model hasn’t come easy.

Janette described the entire venture as “headwinds”,Growing up, their parents had spoken to them in Spanish and the sisters had answered in English,Now they had to negotiate contracts and discuss construction plans completely in their second language, something that took time and practice, and a little help from their dad,There was also the issue of securing funding,“Women of color founders, our access to capital is so much lower,” Janett said.

(In fact, a 2023 McKinsey report found that Black and Latino women founders received only 0,1% of US venture capital funds,) Some investors demanded wildly unrealistic prerequisites before they would commit; others expressed concerns about an overseas operation,For the first few years, the company “bootstrapped it with small angel capital”, including a boost from a former Hershey’s executive, but investments picked up and the company has raised $12m to date, Janett said,Today, even if you’ve never come across Inaru in the supermarket, there’s a good chance you’ve eaten it: 80% of the company’s business is selling to brands like the W Hotel and Zingerman’s, which Janett said are attracted to the chocolate’s high quality and transparent supply chain.

Inaru-branded chocolates also sell online and in more than a dozen boutiques and specialty shops, with a “biggie” 2.5oz dark chocolate bar going for $11, on par with other high-end brands.“Cocoa from the DR tends to be better quality, better chocolate,” said Fountain.“This is not what you put in a KitKat.”Variations include hibiscus white chocolate, orange and fennel dark, and vanilla and chamomile, among others.

Janett and Erika now live in the Dominican Republic full-time, making frequent trips back to the US.They said creating jobs in their parents’ homeland had been deeply rewarding, while reconnecting with their roots had been its own revelatory experience.“From a young age, I always knew there was another way of life beyond what I knew, and it was always really alluring to be able to try to understand that better,” said Erika.“Honestly, it feels really natural to be here.”