The Grenada Chocolate Company

GRENADA CHOCOLATE COMPANY

TASTE OF GRENADA SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE

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INTERVIEW: THE GRENADA CHOCOLATE COMPANY

A TASTE

OF GRENADA

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Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Edmond Brown, Co-Founder of the Grenada Chocolate Company, about the making of their chocolate, their radical business model, and organic certification.

The Grenada Chocolate Company is a Grenadian small-scale chocolatier and internationally award-winning producer of organic dark chocolate. Founded in 1999 by Mott Green, Doug Browne, and Edmond Brown, the company employs people from within Grenada’s local community and guarantees farmers – who are organized into a co-operative – a fair price for their cocoa. Because small batch chocolate-making is an uncommon business model, the GCC had to create many of their own processing methods, designing specialist small-scale machines and refurbishing antique equipment to meet the unique requirements. Indeed, most of the company’s machines were designed in the early 1900s, and, two decades later, these machines remain in use. The co-operative remains true to its initial aims, paying 1EC$ (65%) per pound more for cocoa beans than the local price, and working with its farmers across over 200 acres of organic cocoa farms.

flavor to the chocolate. This has to be even, so during the process, you have to keep moving the cocoa from side to side. The cocoa then dries in the sun for 2-3 weeks, after which we extract any remaining moisture in our warehouse. The cocoa is then taken into the factory, where we sort the beans, removing any bad or broken pieces, before roasting them, cooling them, and beginning the winnowing process – separating the shells from the nibs. Those nibs are ground in a melanger, at which point we add in sugar, to produce a thick paste. That’s entered into a refining process, using heat and pressure to create a smooth, thin, liquid chocolate. To that, we add some cocoa butter that we’ve extracted from the leftover nibs, which helps to make the chocolate creamy, as well as a few other organic ingredients – soya lecithin and vanilla beans – to improve the flavor. The chocolate is then tempered before mold-

BEAN TO BAR By producing finished chocolate in among their growers, the GCC has complete oversight for the entire chocolate-making process – from the bean on the tree to the final packaged bar. “The farmers begin by harvesting the world-famous Trinitario cocoa beans from the tree,” explains Mr. Brown, Co-Founder of the Grenada Chocolate Company. “We put that into a big heap, crack it open, and remove the seeds, before taking it to the fermenting process, where it remains for six days. It’s through fermentation that you add SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE

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INTERVIEW: THE GRENADA CHOCOLATE COMPANY

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“ALONGSIDE OUR ORGANIC COMMITMENTS, WE’RE ALSO VERY KEEN ON SUSTAINABILITY, AND MANY OF OUR MACHINES HAVE BEEN RECONFIGURED TO RUN ON SOLAR-POWER.”

ing, during which we vibrate the chocolate to ensure all the air bubbles are removed.

The final step is then to dry the chocolate in racks, forming a solid chocolate bar, which will then be hand-wrapped by our employees. We might wrap 2000 or so 80g bars every single day.”

The outcome of this process is the company’s dark chocolate, with its distinctive rich and fruity profile. “We only make plain, dark chocolate,” says Mr. Brown. “Our range goes from 100%, containing no sugar, down to 70%, which contains 20% sugar and the rest cocoa butter. We do one version with salt in it, which we’ve called ‘Saltilicious’, and we also do one with cacao nibs, adding them into the chocolate bar once they’ve been removed from the shell, which give a little crunch. We call that one ‘Nibilicious’. At the moment, if we need to get any other flavors, we have to first make sure it’s organic. For the next season coming up, we’ll get some organic ginger.”

SHARING SUCCESS The company’s co-operative status has been a key part of the company’s values since its founding, helping to ensure that farmers

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receive due pay for their cocoa. “The company has three main shareholders,” explains Mr. Brown. “I’m one, and another is the mother of Mott Green, my co-founder, who sadly passed away in 2013. The remaining 20% of the company shares belong to the farmers, distributed between every farmer.

Whether you have a hectare of land, or an acre, you’ll have a share in the company.

The farmers are all from around the community, mostly from the northern part of the island, and some on the eastern side. Without them, we cannot make chocolate, so it’s essential that we help them to organize, and continue to build good relations between us. It’s a model that’s been central to the business since its founding, and which continues today.”

These values are further reflected in the GCC’s support for local communities in Grenada. “We call ourselves a family,” says Mr. Brown. “That means all the people who work at the factory are from the local community. By employing them, they’re able to send their children to school, and we’re able to help them in other ways. We also offer training to our workers, across all aspects of the chocolate-making process,

whether it’s the roasting, the chocolate processing, and all other processes. It’s not a big building, so everyone works closely with each other, and around each other. We train our workers in all aspects to make sure that if somebody can’t come in, another can fill in and operate mostly everything in the factory.”

EXPORTING ORGANIC Another key feature of the GCC’s unique product is its organic certification, a status that it works hard to maintain. “As part of the organic process, we have to get all of our farmers certified”, explains Mr. Brown.

“To help us do that, we have a farm crew who goes around, working with our farmers to make sure that they don’t use fertilizer on the farm, to check that they’re not spraying pesticides, and that they’re keeping things nice and clean, with all waste or plastic properly cleaned and disposed of.

We work closely with a company from Ger-

many called CERES, who officially certify our chocolate as organic. Every year, they send people to Grenada, and help to make sure that we’re doing the right things, and that we’re following their process all the way through the making of our chocolate.

As we speak, right now, there’s farmers in the process of getting certified. Every year, we try to get 5-6 farmers certified, helping them to clean their farm and get ready to pass their inspection. Alongside our organic commitments, we’re also very keen on sustainability, and many of our machines have been reconfigured to run on solar-power.”

Although the present remains uncertain, the GCC has high hopes for the future.

“Right now, we’re looking to expand a little bit,” says Mr. Brown. “We’ve outgrown the building that we’re currently based in, and we have somewhere in mind that would offer a little more space. We’re hoping that COVID will ease up, so that we can expand,

and begin exporting more chocolate than we are currently, after seeing a reduction during the pandemic. We used to sell a lot of chocolate to tourists, who would come and visit our shop. They’re not here at the moment, but we continue to sell to the locals. As we export more chocolate, hopefully we can employee more people, and start getting even more farmers on board – because in order to export more, we’ll need more cocoa!” c Visit www.grenadachocolate.com and support the company, selected products available internationally

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