Cocoa Research Centre’s new factory set to transform cocoa industry
It’s perched on the road leading to The UWI’s Field Station in St Joseph, and chock-full of exciting promise. This compact rectangle is a chocolate factory, the latest addition to the suite of activities led by the Cocoa Research Centre (CRC) to help resuscitate cocoa production. Its business name is UWI Fine Cocoa Ltd, and it is one of a handful of initiatives by The UWI to commercialise some of its activities to earn revenue, an urgent imperative given the global economic environment.
As the Campus Council met in March of this year for the presentation of the annual report, St Augustine Campus Principal Professor Rose-Marie Belle-Antoine outlined the ongoing projects. She said this chocolate venture took control of the bean-to-bar initiative that has been growing locally, and would be a significant contributor to rebuilding the national cocoa industry.
The idea of making chocolate and other products from the celebrated Trinitario beans for which Trinidad and Tobago is renowned has been around for some time. In 2007, the late Professor John Spence, a botanist, who headed the Cocoa Research Unit (forerunner to the CRC), said it was time for chocolate to be made locally, but Dr Darin Sukha, CRC’s food technologist and research fellow, noted that it was only around 2011 that the movement towards chocolate-making really came alive.
“I see the factory as a way not only to show the opportunity that exists along the cocoa value chain, but as a way to catalyse the industry through the sexy end with chocolate, because people associate cocoa with drudgery and a certain quality of life that is sub-optimal.
“People, farmers will say, I sacrificed and sent my children to school, I don’t want them to work hard like how I worked. People have this narrative of cocoa being hard work. It is hard work, yes, but chocolate gives the opportunity to see the potential of the industry through a different lens.
“I think UWI, as a trailblazer in that regard, showing what’s the optimal approach, considering all the things that need to be done to do it right, and CRC providing the technical guidance and support is part of realising that vision. We have a small industry, and if we could use the factory to encourage people to go into production, then we are making a positive impact, and not just in terms of cocoa—which is not much, it’s getting less and less—but if we can get people to plant more trees, then we’re growing the industry in a different way. It’s not just consumption but growing the overall industry.”
Professor Pathmanathan Umaharan, a professor of genetics, who now heads the CRC, spoke of the decline. “We used to produce in 90,000 hectares in the 1920s, now we are producing in 3,500 hectares.”
The decline was rapid. “Poor management is part of the problem,” he said, noting that there have been “many production innovations globally, and Trinidad has been left behind. T&T produces 200 kg per hectare whereas the best countries produce 4,000 kg per hectare.” This is what CRC hopes to change, helping everyone involved, from farmers to chocolatiers, to move the entire industry forward.
Several elements are involved, he said. “Branding; you need to have quality; food safety, and volume. Then you have to have traceability. Many small chocolatiers are around, but they don’t have the ability to build that brand because they are short of resources.”
CRC can create a brand for T&T, he said; that is the chocolate factory’s role. Many people are not ready; their facilities do not have food safety, they do not have the regulatory systems. To enter foreign markets, sustainability, traceability, all of those are conditionalities. Everybody wants to have good quality, but there are all these other aspects. Volume is critical, he said, relating how one coffee grower told him that he took his coffee to a show in Europe, and one particular buyer loved it and wanted a container’s worth, but he could only provide 50kgs.
“You cannot build a brand and have market positioning without volume,” he said.
Professor Umaharan believes the CRC can provide resources and technological support, so they don’t have to spend on those things. For the farmers,“They only have to produce the beans, and once it meets the standard of quality, we will buy it. They will get cash right away. It will incentivise farms as well as small chocolatiers. So the idea is that we will be bringing this thing forward and taking all these people with us.”
They’ve already begun discussions with interested parties, bringing them into the facility and showing them around. “We now have people coming on board who are allowing us to take their beans and create intermediary products for them. They don’t have to be roasting and making liquor, we are doing that. We are making either nibs, liquor or even their chocolate for them, and they are using the saving of both time and money to focus on either creating new products or marketing.”
The chocolate factory is part of the small complex of buildings and land that contain the CRC’s Model Cocoa Orchard and labs, training rooms and other facilities. Ten years ago, the project was initiated as the International Fine Cocoa Innovation Centre (IFCIC) with a €2 million grant from the European Union. It was envisioned to comprise the chocolate factory, a business incubator facility, a living museum of cocoa plants, a cocoa tourism centre, a restaurant, kitchen and labs, as well as a chocolate academy to train chocolatiers.
Not everything has come to pass yet, but the chocolate factory is a reality and just walking through it and seeing the high-end equipment, one can feel how much research was done to make it such a stream- lined, compact facility. Nothing was cheap, and its size belies its capacity.
Prof Umaharan said that Trinidad’s total production at the moment is about 400 metric tonnes. The factory can do that in two shifts. They will be producing cocoa nibs, cocoa liquor (the base for chocolate), and couverture (the finished product).
The CRC recently launched its own brand of dark chocolates, “SPIRITT”, a series of premium bars created by Dr Sukha and made by the Food Technology team. They range from 100%, 80%, 75% and 55% to the unique 70% bar derived from the collection at the International Cocoa Genebank, which contains the total diversity of cocoa in the world. This local repository is one of only two in existence. This chocolate bar was originally called the Spirit of Chocolate, to reflect its origin.
The challenge now for the CRC and its working partner, UWI Fine Cocoa Ltd, is to strike a balance between earning revenue and reinvigorating the local economy. In keeping with the sweet spirit of community and development, they are choosing to limit sales of their bars to the university community regionally.
