Grenada Chocolate Company
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The Grenada Chocolate Company is a cooperative in Grenada making organic dark chocolate from bean to bar as well as growing the cocoa in Grenada (tree-to-bar).
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[edit] History
The Grenada Chocolate Company Ltd. was established in 1999 with the idea of creating an organic cocoa farmers' and chocolate-makers' cooperative. Its founding partners were Mott Green, Doug Browne and Edmond Brown. Two of the three founders live on the island and work cooperatively with a handful of workers, all locals. It produces high quality organic dark chocolate in Grenada with its own cocoa beans. These are certified according to the USDA-NOP final rule by CERES (Certfier of Environmental Standards) GmbH and certified according to regulation EEC 2092/91 by CERES Gmbh. The factory is located in Grenada's rainforest.
[edit] Cultivation
Grenada dark chocolate reflects the complex flavor of Grenada's fine-flavored organic cocoa beans, processed in small batches.[1] Grenada grows almost entirely Trinitario cocoa with a few Forasteros and has one of the strongest, richest cocoas in the world partially due to the super-rich volcanic soil here and the hot sun. Producing chocolate where the cocoa grows allows the Grenada Chocolate Company to do their own fermenting, which is unique in the chocolate industry and which permits the creation of the finest, most complex taste from the beans. Use of their own (relatively low-pressure cocoa butter press) extracted cocoa butter enables extra richness and chocolaty flavor that has been recognised with a Silver Award from The Academy of Chocolate.[2]
[edit] Manufacture
The Grenada Chocolate Company has over 150 acres (0.61 km2) of organic cocoa farms in its cooperative and operates its own cocoa fermentry, located one mile (1.6 km) from their small factory. This allows all activities involved in the production of chocolate to be local, from the planting and growing of the cocoa trees to the fermenting of the fresh cocoa beans to the processing of chocolate. The Grenada Chocolate Company grows cocoa naturally without the use of any chemical pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers.
[edit] Products
- Organic chocolate bars
- SweetyPodsTM, organic chocolate pieces in the shape of cocoa pods
- Smilo cocoa powder (only available locally)
[edit] Ingredients
The Grenada Chocolate Company sugar is a fine organic raw sugar produced and milled by an organic growers' cooperative in Paraguy. Whole organic vanilla beans grown biodynamically in Costa Rica provide their "dash" of vanilla; organic soy lecithin is used as emulsifier in extremely small amounts. As the ingredients are so pure and simple, all chocolate is guaranteed to be free of any nuts, fruit or dairy, even in trace amounts.
[edit] Context
The Grenada Chocolate Company is one of the only small-scale chocolate-makers producing fine chocolate right where the cocoa grows. Because small batch chocolate-making is very rare, they created their own processing methods, designing machines and refurbishing antique equipment to meet the requirements of their unique situation. Most of their machines are based on designs from the early 1900s, a time when quality had precedence over quantity in chocolate-making. About 25% of the energy needed to power their machinery is generated from photovoltaic solar panels.[3]
[edit] Objectives
The stated aim of the cooperative company is to revolutionize the cocoa-chocolate system that typically keeps cocoa production separate from chocolate-making and therefore takes advantage of cocoa farmers. The Grenada Chocolate Company claim that the cocoa farmers should benefit as much as the chocolate-makers.[4]
[edit] Fair Trade
According to one of the founders, it's more than procrastination that's kept them from filing the paperwork: Fair trade chocolate companies still, almost exclusively, process the value-added product in the first world with raw materials they import from the equatorial belt where cocoa grows. In that way, even the fair-trade system perpetuates a cycle the founders of the Grenada Chocolate Co. are determined to break. "They're buying cocoa from the south part of the world to bring it to the north part of the world," Green said. "But what we're doing can effectively make sure that the people doing the work are actually part of the process."[5]
[edit] References
- ^ O'Sullivan, Maggie (4 April 2006). "Silver lining to every cloud". Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/centralamericaandcaribbean/grenada/734906/Silver-lining-to-every-cloud.html. Retrieved 2009-05-31. "...we stop at the Grenada Chocolate Factory. This tiny solar-powered factory, painted in jolly Caribbean colours, uses organically grown cocoa to produce dark, 74 per cent solids chocolate, made in small batches on antique machinery. Desmond, who talks our little group of visitors through the various stages of production, tells us that each bitter-sweet slab takes three days to produce and that they are all wrapped by hand. The chocolate that was being processed at the time of the hurricane was made into special Hurricane Ivan bars and sold through the British chocolate shop, Rococo, in aid of Hearts and Hands of Grenada; a Hurricane Emily bar will be launched this summer."
- ^ "The Academy of Chocolate Awards 2008". Academy of Chocolate. http://www.academyofchocolate.org.uk/academy/awards/2008.html. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ Young, Lauren (8 February 2008). "Making the World Better Through Chocolate". Business Week. http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/feb2008/bw2008028_343441.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-31. "In addition to using organic and farm-fresh ingredients, plenty of chocolate makers are trying to tread lightly on the earth, too. Take Grenada Chocolate (www.grenadachocolate.com) in Grenada, West Indies. It gets 25% of the electricity used to run its factory from solar power."
- ^ Pickup, Gilly. "The laid-back Caribbean island of Grenada". Sunday Sun (England). http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/0900travel/0200holidayreveiws/tm_headline=the-laid-back-caribbean-island-of-grenada&method=full&objectid=19718474&siteid=50081-name_page.html. Retrieved 2009-05-31. "...it was off into the rainforest to visit the Grenada Chocolate Company factory. The word “factory”, though, gives the wrong impression. The premises look just like someone’s rather humble home. Inside this chocoholic’s dream, the smell of rich organic chocolate fills your senses. There are no stringent health and safety rules here to interfere with the creation of some of the most delicious chocolate bars ever . . . among the world’s most expensive, too, at around £45 per kilo. A co-operative system is in place which ensures that the workers, from the farmer to the chocolate maker, are paid the same. Vintage and handmade machinery is used to meet the requirements of small- batch chocolate making, while solar energy powers the machines, including the ancient cocoa-roaster. The chocolate — produced in 30C-plus temperatures — is definitely the scrummiest I have tasted."
- ^ Subramanian, Meera (12 June 2007). "Dark chocolate goes green". Salon (Salon Media Group, Inc). http://www.salon.com/mwt/food/eat_drink/2007/06/12/grenada/index.html. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- Palmer, Susan (7 February 2000). "Duo cultivates chocolate factory dream". The Register Guard (Eugene, Oregon): pp. 1D, 5D. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=9oEVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-OsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6315,1837060&dq=duo+cultivates+chocolate+factory+dream. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- Mathews, Dylan (1 December 2005). "Just chocolate: revolution in a wrapper". New Internationalist Magazine. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-12162630_ITM. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- Amanshauser, Martin. "Grenada: Calypso ohne Rumkugel-Klischee" (in German). Die Presse (Wien). http://diepresse.com/home/leben/reise/321351/index.do?_vl_backlink=/home/index.do. Retrieved 2009-05-31. "Der New Yorker Mott Green, 40, ist hingegen Gründer der „Grenada Chocolate Company“, die auf biologischer Basis seit 1999 Schokolade herstellt: die kleinste Schokolade-Fabrik der Welt. „Wir wollen keinen Profit“, erklärt der Aussteiger, seit 22 Jahren in Grenada, „wir möchten Nachhaltiges schaffen. Und Schokolade war immer mein Interessensgebiet.“ Der internationale Durchbruch: die Bronzemedaille bei den Awards der „Academy of Chocolate“ in London."
- Coady, Chantal (25 March 2006). "Best bar none". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2006/mar/25/travelfoodanddrink.foodanddrink.caribbean. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
[edit] Notes
Article based on [1] and licensed under the GFDL.
