Guadalcanal is one of the largest islands in the Solomon Islands archipelago and our cocoa farmers here are based on the north coast.
The farm that grows most of our Solomon Islands cocoa is a truly family affair with a husband and wife team along with the husbands four sisters each of whom brings the specialist knowledge to the business, from growing and fermenting to finance and shipping.
The farm here has invested in solar drying enclosers so that the cocoa beans can be covered quickly when the showery squalls of the south seas rush in. This form of drying, and not fire-drying, allows the true flavours inherent in the cocoa bean to come through without any hint of smokiness.
Malekula Island in Vanuatu is pure paradise and boasts a thriving cocoa-farming community. This community lives in a village in the centre of Malekula, itself an 8-hour boat trip from Port Vila.
So small in quantity is the cocoa-crop of Malekula that it doesn’t even register on the cocoa scale of production, which shows how rare it is and why we must work so closely with the farmers to champion their superior crop.
Madagascar, by contrast, is a larger island just off the coast of Mozambique. The Sambirano Valley is in the northwest of the island, heading towards the mountains. It enjoys a warm, wet microclimate making it perfect for the growing of cocoa.
Shade for the cocoa is provided by enormous 30-metre fast-growing hardwood trees, which are used for shelter and fuel for the region. The farms where we source our cocoa are spread out and hard to reach. And like all of our cocoa farms, they tend to be a family affair.
