Fernando Heincke was in his sixth semester of Finance when he presented a project to the panela market. His teachers rejected him: they didn’t find him innovative, he had little chance of success and he was focused on a “product for the poor”, they told him. Far from discouraging him, this resounding declaration did not enthuse him and gave him the strength to make a radical decision: to leave university and start a business. He was convinced that his idea could open up an important market and improve the living conditions of the country’s paneleros.
Heincke was born in Bogotá, into an urban family: “I don’t come from parents who owned sugar cane crops or grandparents who owned land,” he comments. His life was that of any young city dweller until, at the age of 19 and thanks to what he calls a “diosidence”, he found himself at an event in Villeta, Cundinamarca. There he falls in love with Panela and the countryside. “I understood that panela is the second source of employment in Colombian agriculture, that 29 of the 32 departments produce it, that it generates the livelihood of 350,000 families and that our country is the second largest producer in the world. boom and I wondered how it was possible for people to consider this a product for the poor without examining all of its attributes and potential,” he recalls.
Since then, it has offered to contribute to the transformation of the Colombian countryside through value chains with social, environmental and economic impact. For him, the model must be oriented towards a company which, beyond financial return, builds fairer, innovative and human relations in rural areas.
By María Panela of the Heincke group
In order to realize the vision that led him to leave university, Heincke founded María Panela, a company dedicated to the marketing of drinks based on this product. There were seven years of attempts to make panela a profitable business for both him and the farmers. However, this did not happen. His business model did not allow him to purchase large volumes: “In the historic center of Cartagena, I opened a store. There, I sold mojitos, and to make 3,000 of them, I only needed one packet,” he says. “Even though I bought the panela at a very good price, it was a single packet and did not generate the transformation I wanted. I needed to rethink the business model to market large volumes and thus have a more direct impact on the panela sector.
Around 2016, María Panela closed its doors. The end of the business could have been proof of what his friends and teachers had told him. It wasn’t like that. I have always trusted the product. He was convinced that the error lay in the economic model and that it needed to be rethought. So, in 2017 and with his wife, María Paula Guerrero, he founded Heincke SAS BIC, to export panelas in different presentations. Despite the challenges of the economy, national or international, including a pandemic, the company has become a group of companies with a purpose: Heincke Group, composed of Heincke SAS BIC, dedicated to services, and Heincke ZF SAS BIC, in charge of the industrial process. Today, the group is certified as a B Corp Company, which meets high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability, and BIC Company, which generates a triple economic, social and environmental impact.
In addition to continuing to be one of the main players in the panela sector in the country, with the 23 factories spread across eight departments with which it works and more than 13,700 tons of cane harvested by its farmer allies, the Heincke group has diversified its offer. Today it also works with cereal bars, coffee, saltines, nuts, coconut and the Amazon sacha inchi plant.
To meet the challenges of expansion and diversification, the company built an industrial complex in the Facatativá free zone, inaugurated in 2023, which allowed it to explore other business sectors and offer product processing, packaging and storage services to third parties. Currently, 52% of its market is abroad and its production chain generates 1,180 jobs, 393 direct and 787 indirect.
In terms of raw materials trading, the success of the Heincke Group lies in the establishment of short supply networks. Around 95% of producers are located within 250 kilometers of the factory. This reduces costs and improves communication with panel members.
Furthermore, the relationship with producers is not based solely on purchasing. Since 2018, the company has also transferred knowledge related to quality standards, the promotion of agroecological and regenerative practices and productive inclusion: “We view the acquisition of products as an opportunity to develop capabilities, create alliances and raise the level of sustainability of our value chain,” explains Heincke. For example, 48.5% of raw material acquisitions are in the hands of companies run by women or whose workforce is predominantly female.
In a complementary manner, Heincke, in collaboration with the investment company Amplo, created the acceleration program “From the countryside to the world”, which promotes rural businesses in order to reduce inequalities in the Colombian countryside, especially those located in the PDET (Development Programs with Territorial Approach) municipalities. So far, 2,400 families have been reached and 17 rural businesses have been supported.
Heincke, who has never stopped dreaming, continues to think about innovating. It is clear that the future of his company lies in research and development. In recent years he has dedicated himself to modernizing panela production: “No one has started to study how to process panela differently, more efficiently, using new technologies. We did it. We have made prototypes, we have tested small products and we have thus generated technologies that give us up to 12 times more performance.
He now wanted to extend innovation to crops. Keen to improve farmers’ incomes and protect soil and the environment, the Heincke Group has teamed up with leading companies in the field of sustainable agricultural inputs to launch a line for the countryside. The objective is to offer producers inputs that improve crop productivity and, at the same time, are environmentally friendly.
The diversification he has achieved in recent years is not enough for Heincke. Share the accumulated knowledge so that there are more sustainable businesses. From there was born an accelerator that promotes entrepreneurial businesses and productive agricultural projects with high potential. It functions as an “applied university,” as he defines it, that identifies management, financial, technology and market gaps, strengthens products, operations, talent and growth and, in some cases, provides seed capital to scale.
After this rejection during his student years and a failure that taught him many lessons, his desire to prove to his teachers, his classmates and the world that he was not wrong led him to found a group of companies that builds, around panela and other natural products, a more humane and more equitable relationship with Colombian farmers.
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