Saint Lucian cocoa grower and luxury chocolate maker, Hotel Chocolat, has scooped several awards at the annual Great Taste Awards held in London, including two chocolates made only with Saint Lucian cocoa. Rabot Estate 66% Dark Chocolate and Island Growers 50% Milk with caramel and sea salt were both awarded 2 gold stars by the judges.
The Great Taste Awards are acknowledged as one of the benchmarks of high quality food and drink in the UK and have been described as the ‘Oscars’ of the food world. Many consumers see the Award as an independent seal of quality, which is why this year over 1500 producers entered over 7400 of their products for blind tasting by industry experts.
Hotel Chocolat Estates Director, Phil Buckley, said, “Winning awards like this is fantastic for putting the fine cocoa of Saint Lucia back on the cocoa map – where it belongs. These awards are also a just reward for the sheer hard work and dedication of our team at Rabot Estate and all of the cocoa farmers who are part of our HCCAPEE cocoa programme. I can’t wait to tell them that their cocoa has won another prestigious award!”
Hotel Chocolat’s HCCAPEE cocoa programme is a pioneering approach that is helping to rejuvenate cocoa farming on Saint Lucia. The farmers that join enjoy a
guarantee to buy their entire crop at rates substantially higher than the basic commodity price they used to get. That’s as well as providing technical help and access to Rabot Estate’s fine Trinitario cocoa seedlings. Already, 120 farmers have joined
the scheme and Hotel Chocolat has orders for 40,000 seedlings this year alone.
