CONFIREL ORIGINS
Four origins. One Cambodian house.
Four Cambodian landscapes. Four ingredients. One house transforming Cambodian terroirs for the modern table.
Explore the four origins
Palm sugar, since 2001
Kampong Speu Palm Sugar
A producer tapping sugar palms in Kampong Speu.
Across Oudong and Samrong Tong in Kampong Speu, and Ang Snuol in neighbouring Kandal, sugar palms rise above rice fields and sandy village paths. Rainfall here is among the lowest in Cambodia, but deep red-yellow sandy soils and an underlying gravel layer drain quickly — conditions that concentrate the palm's sap into something naturally rich and aromatic.
Nothing about turning that sap into sugar is passive. Each December through May, producers climb every palm by hand, prepare its flowers, and collect the sap in bampong containers before fermentation can set in. Filtered and cooked in open pans without any added substances, it becomes granulated sugar, paste, block or syrup — four forms, one same protected sap.
This is Skor Thnot Kampong Speu: a Geographical Indication that protects not just a place name, but a living relationship between soil, climate, skill and the families who tend it.
Palm sugar sap being cooked by local producers.
The 130 families behind it
Confirel works directly with more than 130 producer families through its Palm Sugar Value Chain Enhancement Program, run alongside Khmer Enterprise and the Kampong Speu Palm Sugar Promotion Association (KSPA) — reviewing equipment, aligning production standards, and planning improvements together, family by family.
From CIRAD to Natexpo
In 2001, Confirel's founder Dr Hay Ly Eang worked with CIRAD scientists to filter and stabilise the sap itself — a breakthrough that met international food-safety standards and earned a Palme d'Or at Natexpo Paris in 2005, the same year Confirel's first palm sugar reached France.
From this origin
Palm Sugar Products
Thnot organic Kampong Speu palm sugar
Warm caramel aroma
Kampong Speu Palm Sugar
From $1.20
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Palm Sugar Products
Thnot organic palm syrup
Warm caramel aroma
Kampong Speu Palm Sugar
From $1.25
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Palm Sugar Products
Thnot Kampong Speu palm sugar paste 1kg
Soft, spreadable texture
Kampong Speu Palm Sugar
$4.50
View productPepper, since 2009
Kampot Pepper
Kampot pepper vines in the protected growing area.
In the designated districts of Kampot and Kep, pepper vines climb where more than 2,000 millimetres of annual rain meet elevated, fast-draining foothills. Generations of growers have worked this advantage rather than fought it — raising the soil, maintaining canals, renewing the root zone, shading young vines with knowledge passed down as carefully as the land itself.
Only two authorised varieties may carry the name Kampot Pepper — and it is timing and processing, not a different plant, that creates its four expressions. Green pepper, picked underripe, stays citrus and lively. Black, harvested riper and dried whole, deepens into floral, eucalyptus and mint. Red, fully ripe, turns rounder and fruitier. White, soaked and skinned, reveals grass and lime beneath.
Recognised as a Geographical Indication in Cambodia in 2010, and a Protected Geographical Indication in the EU in 2016.
Sorting harvested Kampot pepper.
A name earned, then protected
Only pepper grown within the registered districts, following the official specification and certified by an accredited independent body under Cambodia's Ministry of Commerce, may carry the Kampot name — a framework built on the growers' own reputation, earned long before the label existed.
Kirum, from vine to jar
Under the Kirum name, Confirel selects and processes Kampot Pepper into whole, ground and value-added forms — including a marinated green pepper made with palm sugar, organic vinegar and Kampot sea salt — each batch traceable through the protected production chain from vine to jar.
From this origin
Kampot Pepper & Spices
Kirum Kampot black pepper
Spicy, citrus notes
Kampot Pepper
From $5.00
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Kampot Pepper & Spices
Kirum Kampot white pepper
Fresh grass, lime notes
Kampot Pepper
From $6.00
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Kampot Pepper & Spices
Kirum Kampot red pepper
Fruity, floral notes
Kampot Pepper
From $6.00
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Kampot Pepper & Spices
Kirum marinated green Kampot pepper 30g
Fresh green pepper
Kampot Pepper
$3.00
View productPrahok, since 2025
Tonle Sap Prahok
A floating fishing village on Tonlé Sap.
Tonlé Sap, Southeast Asia's largest freshwater lake, swells and shrinks each year in rhythm with the Mekong — a seasonal cycle that has shaped Cambodian food culture for as long as people have fished its waters.
Prahok grew directly out of that rhythm. Long before refrigeration, fermenting fish was how fishing communities turned a seasonal abundance of catch into something that could be kept and used all year — a fermented fish paste that sits at the heart of Khmer cooking, tied to everyday meals and generations of culinary memory. Prepared by hand, using methods passed down through families, prahok remains one of the most foundational and least translated flavours in Cambodian food.
Fishermen sorting their catch on Tonlé Sap.
A household craft
Made by hand in fishing communities around the lake, using techniques passed down through families rather than any single fixed recipe — prahok has always varied a little from household to household, the way a living tradition does.
Kirum Prahok Powder
Confirel's Kirum Prahok Powder takes traditional prahok and reworks it into a dry, shelf-stable format — easier to store, measure and cook with, while keeping its savoury character. It comes in five profiles, from Light to Kaffir Lime, so both home cooks and chefs can choose the intensity they want.
From this origin
Sauces & Condiments
Kirum prahok powder
Balanced savoury depth
Tonle Sap Prahok
From $4.90
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Sauces & Condiments
Prahok rillettes
Smooth, spreadable texture
Tonle Sap Prahok
$4.50
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Sauces & Condiments
Kirum prahok ktiss
Softer, approachable flavour
Tonle Sap Prahok
From $4.50
View productCacao, since 2017
Ratanakiri Cacao
Plantation landscape in Ratanakiri.
In the far northeast of Cambodia, Ratanakiri's volcanic highlands rise between 200 and 1,000 metres, covered in dense forest and threaded with red lateritic soil. It is a landscape long shaped by smallholder farming, and by the Tampuen, Jarai, Kreung and Brao communities who call these highlands home.
Since 2017, it has also been where Confirel has been cultivating an emerging cacao origin for Cambodia — still an early chapter, planted alongside the region's existing trees and farming knowledge rather than in place of them.
Confirel's cacao team working in the plantation.
Cultivation with a longer view
Cacao is still an emerging crop for Cambodian agriculture, so the approach has stayed experimental from the start — adapting cultivation to Ratanakiri's soil and climate alongside the land's existing trees, rather than clearing it for a single new crop. The initiative, now named Confirel's One Million Cocoa Trees programme, was presented at a UNIDO assembly in Addis Ababa in 2024 as an example of sustainable agricultural development in the region.
Toward Thnot Chocolate
Under the name Thnot Chocolate, Confirel is exploring what a genuinely Cambodian chocolate could look like — pairing Ratanakiri cacao with Thnot palm sugar and local ingredients across three early formats: truffles built around Khmer flavours like Kampot pepper and coconut, fruit-filled chocolates, and pure Thnot palm sugar chocolate.
In development
Thnot Chocolate remains an early, ongoing project rather than a line available to buy today — the next chapter of this origin is still being written.
Twenty-five years, four origins
Why Cambodia
Confirel could only have started in Cambodia — where pepper, palm sugar, prahok and cacao each carry the soil, climate and knowledge of their place. Twenty-five years on, the work remains the same: understand the terroir, respect the knowledge behind it, transform Cambodian ingredients locally, and carry their identity faithfully to the table.