Valentine’s Day may be over but there’s love for chocolate year-round in Saint Lucia as small producers capture the booming boutique market with high-quality products made entirely on-island. “The boutique chocolate business is growing by leaps and bounds,” says chocolatier Allen Susser, Consulting Chef at Jade Mountain and Anse Chastanet Resorts. “People really appreciate quality ingredients and quality processes. That is why fine wines do well and fine olive oils do well. Chocolate is finding its home out there in that niche. There is a big difference between candy and fine chocolate.”
Susser appreciates that difference more than most through his work with Emerald Estate, a cocoa plantation and farm owned and operated by Anse Chastanet Resort. Emerald Estate produces tree-to-bar chocolate that is handcrafted at every stage. “The trees are pruned by hand, the beans are harvested by hand, the chocolate is made by hand. It is a labour of love,” Susser says.
Nestled in the Soufriere Hills, Emerald Estate is home to around 1,000 cocoa trees. When the beans are ripe, they’re plucked from the trees and taken to the Chocolate Lab where they are sorted, roasted and winnowed (to separate the cocoa nib from the hard outer shell). The nibs are then ground in small-batch stone grinders for 48 hours. Sugar is added and the resulting mixture is poured into a block where it ‘ages’ for 4 to 5 months before being tempered and then moulded into bars. It’s a delicate process, and one that has been used since humans first developed a sweet tooth. “This is the way people have made chocolate for hundreds of years,” says Susser. “It is really interesting, and it has a huge impact on the flavour. Our chocolate is very fresh, very high-quality.”
The unique flavour of Emerald Estate chocolate, which Susser describes as “very tropical, with a citrus blossom”, comes from the care taken during the whole process. Every stage has an impact on the final flavour, from harvesting when perfectly ripe to roasting time and temperature. Customers can choose from 60%, 70%, 78% and 92% varieties, and new flavours are sometimes added to the range, such as cashew, lemongrass or coffee, depending on what’s in season on the farm. Every year Emerald Estate harvests between 3,000 and 4,000 cocoa beans, and sells around 15,000 bars of chocolate.
Shortening the supply chain
Latin America and the Caribbean produce 80 per cent of the world’s fine flavour cocoa market, which is worth US$ 4bn annually. While Trinidad has traditionally been the largest producer, cocoa farmers can be found all over the Caribbean, including Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua, Dominica and Grenada.
Typical cocoa value chains involve many layers from the cocoa farmer through to exporters, buyers and retailers. Chef Susser says: “Chocolate making usually happens in some northern countries like Belgium or Switzerland where they are not growing it. They are buying in their beans so they are dealing with these big buying consortiums.”
Emerald Estate is proud to be a small-scale, boutique operation but bigger market players are also looking at the tree-to-bar model. In 2006, when British chocolatier, Hotel Chocolat decided to shorten its supply chain and source its own beans, the company came to Saint Lucia and acquired the 140-acre Rabot Estate.
Hotel Chocolat revived the distressed plantation and organised farming, fermenting and manufacturing all at the one site, therefore putting more profits back into the hands of Saint Lucian growers. “We are one of the few chocolate makers in the world who actually grow our own cocoa and have created a blueprint for sustainable cocoa growing in Saint Lucia,” said Hotel Chocolat CEO and Co-founder Angus Thirlwell. “As growers and producers, we have been able to bridge the vast disconnect between raw agriculture and fine chocolate.”
Tours and tastings
Artisan chocolates are savoured by connoisseurs in the same way that wine-lovers have their favourite vintage or grape. They want flavour, and they want to know exactly where their bar comes from. “To discover what chocolate is and where it comes from, the process of it; it is an amazing thing to learn about,” says Susser. “We take guests to the farm and do tours so we show them what it looks and tastes like as a raw product. They love it.”
Another popular destination for chocolate-loving tourists is the Fond Doux Plantation & Resort, a luxury eco-resort that is also a working plantation. Cocoa trees cover around 20 per cent of the 135-acre property in Soufriere, which was first established by the French in the 1700s. Although the emphasis has now shifted to hospitality with luxury cottages, restaurants and a spa, chocolate is still a huge part of the Fond Doux experience. Guests can not only view and participate in the cocoa production process, they can also purchase chocolate made at the site. The Fond Doux range includes 60%, 70% and 80% chocolate, with sales of around 100 bars a day. The resort’s Executive Director Eroline Lamontagne says: “The response is very, very good. We get chocaholics from all over the world. We have different varieties — nuts, cinnamon, spices — so you can experience the flavours of Saint Lucia.”
Lamontagne, who says Saint Lucia’s chocolate has a “heavenly” and “authentic” taste, is happy to see chocolate being embraced as a part of Saint Lucia’s tourism product. She welcomes efforts by the Saint Lucia Hotel & Tourism Association to launch and promote chocolate-themed events and festivals. “The tourism board has been doing an excellent job in terms of marketing the various flavours of Saint Lucia. Saint Lucia has that unique charm, and our chocolate is also unique.”
Building capacity
Growth in Saint Lucia’s chocolate sector has mainly come from either large-scale plantations such as Hotel Chocolat’s Rabot Estate or those savvy enough to combine tourism offerings with cocoa production such as Emerald Estate and Fond Doux, but industry leaders are now working to help smaller producers.
At the end of last year, the Saint Lucia Trade Export and Promotion Agency (TEPA) applied to development agency Compete Caribbean for funding earmarked for the island’s cocoa industry. The proposal is seeking financial support to help eliminate barriers to trade, and enhance training and quality standards. Opening up the market and making conditions advantageous for farmers at all levels will help entice more Saint Lucians into the chocolate business. With youth unemployment high, and interest in agriculture low, cocoa could be the means to entice a new generation of farmers into working the land.
Lamontagne says one of her biggest challenges at Fond Doux is capacity. As business expands at the eco-resort, she struggles to find enough cocoa beans and cocoa farmers to keep up. “You always need to be planting. We cannot get enough plants and we cannot get enough people who are knowledgeable about it. It is almost a dying thing.”
She believes the key to reviving the industry is to get younger people engaged in chocolate production and cocoa farming, saying: “It is something that should be taught in schools. We have the perfect soil and the perfect climatic conditions for it, so why are we not maximising the opportunities? We are just at the starting point. I’m excited, but cocoa can be even bigger and even more exciting as the demand increases.”
