Belize Chocolate Company's founders, Chris and Jo Beaumont, moved to Belize from the UK in 1999. After a few years of being beach bums, running a windsurfing business and a boutique hotel, they started making chocolate in their small kitchen in their wooden house on the beach in 2007. They opened the first chocolate boutique in Belize in 2012. Chris and Jo buy all their cacao beans from small family farmers in Southern Belize. Most of these farmers are of Kekchi or Mopan Maya descent, who have had their farms handed down through generations.