Hasslacher’s Panela Plantation

Panela

Our Panela comes from the district of Oritá, who’s principle town is called Mariquita located in the north west of Colombia. The geography of the area is humid tropics and is very montainous, with an abundance of cane plantations and different exotic fruits.

The names of the estate farms where Hasslacher’s Organic Panela is made are Plantation ‘El Salto’ because it has a huge waterfall situated within the tropical forest. The farm has 33 hectares of land, including 21.8 hectares of actual cane plantation with the remainder left as interdispersed forest. Allowing large trees amongst the cane also reduces soil erosion.

Located 13km away from Mariquita is our producers other farm, ‘Caña Brava’ with 36 hectares of mixed sugar cane and tropical forest, average temperatures are a pleasant 22°C with an altitude of 890M above sea level.

All plantations maintain full Organic status and are regularly inspected and certified by Ecocert Colombia and are 100% free of fertilizer. Ecocert has a partnership with the UK’s Soil Association and a ‘chain of custody’ is strictly maintained. A local family runs the company and provides us the organic sugar cane to produce the actual panela. They supply the organic sugar cane and are paid a premium price above the local market price. This is because Organic production yields about 40% less cane than conventional non-organic production with fertilisers.