SUNDAY 1ST NOVEMBER, 2015 – UWI TODAY
7
ECONOMY
Cocoa and chocolate
can help diversify the Trinidad and
Tobago economy away from non-renewable “black gold”
to sustainable industries that integrate culture, people and
the environment. A look at the cocoa value chain provides
insight into the prospects behind our country’s “dark gold.”
Ten years ago, none of these brands were on the market.
Enter theWorldCocoa andChocolate Day 2015, and there is
a crush for space. Present are chocolate makers representing
cocoa grown on estates around Trinidad: Cocobel from
Rancho Quemado; Exotic Caribbean Mountain Pride
from Tamana; Ortinola from Maracas St Joseph; Olando
out of Tableland and Tobago; Tory Ven from Lopinot; JB
Chocolates from Gran Couva; House of Arendel; Gina’s
Fine Chocolates; Persad’s with beans from Montserrat Co-
operative; and CRC’s Spirit of Chocolate, using beans from
the International Genebank, Trinidad.
It is noticeable that these chocolate makers are
cultivating not just the taste for locally grown and produced
chocolate, but a taste for dark chocolate. “Dark” means
higher percentages of cocoa solids, less sugar, focus on
releasing the flavours of beans grown on single estates, proud
of the “terroir” of the beans, that elusive sensory quality
imbued by sunlight and soil.
Dr Darin Sukha of the Cocoa Research Centre, UWI,
believes that this quality gives Trinidad and Tobago the edge
as a premium cocoa and chocolate producer.
“Our cocoa should be treated in an analogous way
to that of champagne, low volumes, high quality, high
price, high profit and having a growing global demand.
The country’s reputation for this premium crop has been
cemented through its success at the International Cocoa
Awards and the premium price it fetches on the market.”
TheWorld Index of commodity prices (at October 2015)
reports an average price for cocoa beans of US$3160.24 per
metric tonne. Premiumbeans in Trinidad have been known
to fetch over US$7000 per tonne; and the conservative
international base price for Trinidad’s beans is US$5000.
Further, it is estimated that a tonne of cocoa beans may yield
THE NOBLE BEAN
The Cocoa Research Centre (CRC)
located at
The UWI St. Augustine grewout of the Imperial
College of Tropical Agriculture (ICTA) and is
regarded as the research and science centre
for cocoa growers and chocolate producers
around the world.
/)
ThenewlyestablishedCocoaDevelopment
Company is intended to extend the services of
the Centre to produce innovations along the
entire cocoa value chain. Investors with an
eye on future returns from the world cocoa
economy – now worth some US$83 billion –
are invited to bank on cocoa business. Trinidad
and Tobago is poised to turn the noble bean,
foodof the gods,
TheobromacacaoL.
, intogold.
CHOCOLATE DAY
World Cocoa and Chocolate Day
2015
allowed the Trinidad public, including school
children, to meet chocolate makers and to
sample their products. The event in the JFK
Auditorium at The UWI featured some of the
finest chocolate being made in Trinidad and
Tobago, which is to say, among the finest in
the world. The World Cocoa and Chocolate
Day is the brainchild of the International
Cocoa Organisation and the Académie
Française du Chocolat et de la Confiserie to
bring awareness of the living conditions of
cocoa growers’worldwide in an effort to build
a sustainable cocoa economy. It is celebrated
onOctober 1, every year since 2011. InTrinidad,
the celebration is coordinated by the Cocoa
ResearchCentre (CRC) atTheUWI St Augustine,
and supported by the Cocoa Development
Company of Trinidad andTobago, theMinistry
of Agriculture, the Tourism Development
Company, InvestTT, The UWI and University of
Trinidad and Tobago.
over a tonne – and as much as 1600 kg – of dark chocolate.
What is dark chocolate worth? The prices at the
Chocolate Day 2015 are still “introductory prices” direct
from producer to consumer. The TT$60 bar of 50gm Spirit
of Chocolate is low by international standards. But consider
this, our good fortune is the affordability of a completely
locally grown, processed and packaged product! And the
conversion of a metric tonne (1000 kg) of cocoa beans has
the potential to gross almost TT$2 million at these local
prices.
Here’s the enterprise in economic terms, simple
and rounded but presented for consideration by shrewd
businessmen interested in the development of Trinidad
and Tobago. An estate of say 500 high-yielding cocoa trees
may produce a tonne of beans a year. A tonne of beans may
produce almost two tonnes of chocolate.
Chocolate production is also people intensive, with
specialty skills required in every part of the process. Modern
estate production is facilitated by the development of new
productive clones of Trinitario – the cocoa variety that put
Trinidad on the map around the cocoa-growing world.
Mechanisation for processing cocoa beans is available. In
the chocolate-making shop, skills training, research and
continuous experimentation are encouraged. Innovation
and development of new cocoa products are encouraged:
candles, soaps, beauty products, teas, and of course,
confectionery.
Landowners of old estates are sitting on a fortune.
The older cocoa trees are still to be valued for flavour and
as gene material. Revitalise with new high yielding stock.
Take advantage of the resources that have been cultivated
here for over a hundred years, with intellectual capital
vested in the Cocoa Research Centre at UWI; estate skills
and monitoring services at the Ministry of Agriculture;
and shared experimentation in a new community of cocoa
growers and artisan chocolate makers. What are we waiting
for?
The World Index of commodity prices (at October 2015) reports an average
price for cocoa beans of US$3160.24 per metric tonne. Premium beans
in Trinidad have been known to fetch over US$7000 per tonne; and the
conservative international base price for Trinidad’s beans is US$5000.
From
Black Gold
to
Dark Gold
Cocoa is good business
B Y P A T G A N A S E
Cheering on the muffin eaters.
