By Kamkav Farm, Mondulkiri, Cambodia · November 2026
We planted Cambodia's first cacao farm in 2014, so we hear the same questions all the time. Is there really cacao in Cambodia? Where does it grow? Is it any good? Here are our honest answers, with the numbers behind them.
Yes, but only since 2014. Before that, as far as we know, nobody had grown cacao in Cambodia. In colonial times there were two attempts in neighbouring Vietnam, one by Alexandre Yersin and one by Father Gernot in Ben Tre, and in the 1980s Soviet and Cuban specialists tried again there. None of them took off. We found no record of cacao in Cambodia itself, though many archives were lost under the Khmer Rouge.
In 2014 our founders, Stefan Struik and Chanthol Chean, planted Cambodia's first cacao farm near the Bu Sra waterfall in Mondulkiri. That made Cambodia the world's 67th cacao origin.
In the northeastern highlands: Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri. Our own estate sits at 800 m on volcanic soil, and our partner farmers grow between 500 and 800 m.
It is the only part of the country where cacao does well. Most of Cambodia lies at 12–50 m and gets as hot as 42 °C. Up here, days peak around 35 °C, nights drop to 12 °C, and there is more rain and humidity, which is what cacao trees need.
Very. There was no playbook and no local expertise, and no guarantee the trees would take. The severe 2015 drought across Southeast Asia killed every seedling we had planted. We started again in mid-2016 with our own organic nursery: grafted seedlings, a natural pesticide made from neem, and cow manure from neighbouring smallholders.
It is the cacao of this region. Our first seedlings came from Buon Ma Thuot in Vietnam's Central Highlands: a Trinitario × Forastero line that reached Vietnam from Malaysia. Over the years the trees developed into a hybrid of their own, and in January 2020 fermentation expert Prof. Dr. Albertus Eskes identified 19 distinct sub-varieties on our farms.
We call it Bunong cacao after the Bunong, the largest indigenous community in Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri. More on the cacao types page.
Ours has an intense chocolate aroma with floral and herbal hints, a gentle cocoa depth, and warm notes of nuts, spice and ripe dried fruit. That is how we describe it; the real test is a sample on your own roasting bench.
We are biased, so here are the numbers instead. The Malaysian Cocoa Board has graded our beans SMC 1 under MS 2672:2017 twice, for batch 23/24 and batch 25/26. Batch 25/26 reached a 98.66% fermentation rate with 1.33% total defects. Cadmium came in at 0.04 mg/kg, 20× below the EU limit for dark chocolate.
Chocolate makers and distributors in Asia, the Middle East and Europe buy it. Still, don't take our word for it: see the specification sheet or ask for a sample.
Our own estate of about 36 hectares, and the 67 smallholder farmers of CFARM, from the Bunong, Kreung, Jarai, Tampuan and Khmer communities. They bring their harvest to a shared fermentation centre in Sre Ampom that we run together, so every lot is fermented and dried the same way.
Members plant cacao among shade trees and fruit trees rather than clearing forest for it, and with our support they have planted 10,000 trees so far. More about CFARM.
Not much yet, and we can only speak for our own network. In the 2022/23 season, farmers connected to us and CFARM produced about 16 tonnes of fermented cacao. In 2026 we shipped 17 tonnes: 15 to the Middle East and 2 to Japan. Volumes are growing as the trees mature.
From us, directly. The smallest order is 90 kg (3 bags), EXW Mondulkiri, and we ship LCL or FCL from Phnom Penh or Sihanoukville. Message us on WhatsApp, use the enquiry form, or see the prices, and we will get back to you.
