The next time you unwrap a candy bar, think about this: It takes a whopping 400 to 500 cacao beans to make just one pound of chocolate, according to Ag Hires and the Hershey Story. And making and harvesting cacao is no easy feat, either. It takes up to five years for cacao trees to yield their first crop of cacao pods, and the plants are notoriously picky about their growing conditions, requiring humidity, frequent rainfall, and sufficient soil drainage. When they do become productive, the trees yield an annual harvest of 20 to 30 pods, which take four to five months to grow and ripen.

Each pod contains between 40 and 50 cacao beans that have to be extracted, fermented, and dried before use — making the creation of a pound of chocolate a pretty arduous process!