Sandals & Sunnies: The Grenada Chocolate Festival 2018 :: The Chocolate Reign and the Mott Greene Legacy

Last year I had the extraordinary pleasure of being a part of the Grenada Chocolates Festival as a local blogger for its 2017 activities. (If you missed any of that you can find more on it my 2017 experience here.) This year, I joyously had the opportunity to attend a few of the Grenada Chocolate Festival's 2018 adventures. While I visited the Victory Chocolate Company and the Crayfish Bay Organic Cocoa Farm in 2017, I was able to go to the Mott Green Grenada Chocolate Company in 2018.

There, in the parish of St. Andrew, we were presented with a vast list of activity options as well as an intimate look at the life, vision and accomplishments of Mott Green. It was a bitter sweet gift to be able to have personal account of his life and passion for chocolate from people who where close with him and knew him, so very well. People like his business partner and friend Edmund Brown.

Now, amateur hiker that I am, I choose the simpler of routes and I decided not to take the trek to the sulphur spring. I have no regret though because as much as cocoa means to me as a Grenadian who enjoys cocoa tea as much as I do, I felt like it was my far over due duty to acquire a more intimate knowledge of the beginnings of my local chocolate industry.

As we coasted up the Eastern main road on to our destination in early morning, I had no idea my heart would become so much more tied up in the local cocoa diligence as it did by that day's end...It is so interesting how unexpectedly, a simple trip can change you.. I suppose I should have known this already after all my crazy experiences on vacation but I was about to learn that if you open yourself to receive everything an experience has to offer to you, it will stir change in you no matter the soil, whether home or abroad.

My tour started with the visiting of the old great house with a corresponding slave pen. If you’re not up to speed, ‘The Great House’ was commonly the ‘Master/Slave Owner’s’ residence where he lived with his family close enough to oversee his property. It is often a structure made to be awe inspiring, full of grandeur and dignity. Even with the passage of centuries the one we visited that day still architecturally has that air about it. Contrastingly, the slave pen is just the opposite. It is quite simply a claustrophobic, dark, dank, hole in the ground meant to break and subdue the spirit of men and women. On this property the two still stand footsteps apart. It hurts me every time to know that once people slept in a hole footsteps away from parties and fêting…but I think the experience of that pain remains important and I am glad that while we visited the cocoa plantation on that property we were allowed to feel the effects of history, re-mastered, so to speak.

We went on to a guided educational walk through the cocoa field, learning to recognize different species of cocoa by the leaves of their trees. We found ourselves, crunching dried leaves underfoot and looking up into cocoa framed, canapé skies. The voice of our guide spoke as we weaved our way through low hanging branches and past healthy, over grown roots of seasons and of hidden flowers ahead of us.

The rainbow colours of cocoa pods at every peripheral, as we walked along breathing in fruit fragrances and the intoxicating scent of cocoa in its natural, cared for environment. All of which, infused with the sweet taste of natural sugars, herbs, spices, clean air, Caribbean sunlight and rainforest rainwater to naturally spur on growth… God, I love this country!

Then it was back to the factory for a tour of it, presentation on the founder of the Mott Green by his partner, national dish eating and a little stopping at the famous bonbon shop.

It was a packed day and I loved every moment of it! The entire thing was aesthetically pleasing sure but do you know what really caught my heart in a vice? Mott Green worked hard to establish the reign of the cocoa industry and now it is a beautiful rain that threatens its very flourish…

I was shocked to learn that our cocoa farmers are in danger of themselves disappearing due to growing older, lack of younger people getting into agricultural ventures and many other challenges the present day cocoa farmers are facing.

Sorting coca with one of the ladies who has worked at the factory for decades!

I had the opportunity to speak with one of our cocoa farms for an in-depth chat about some of these challenges and we narrowed it down to two major issues negatively impacting the Grenadian cocoa industry and how these issues are frustrating farmers out of the profession while daunting and dissuading new comers to it. We also of course, brainstormed how we might attempt to fix those glaring issues as, after all, it is in our best interest as cocoa enthusiasts, chocolate lovers and Grenadians to so do. Here is what we came up with:

Major Challenges of Cocoa Farmers In Grenada:

Our local farmers are having serious trouble getting their cocoa produce sold due to lack of drying facilities and storage facilities for housing wet cocoa. Cocoa is as its peek in rainy season. However if the cocoa foundation has the monopoly on buying cocoa from our farmers and they do not have a storage facility large enough to house the vast amount of cocoa being produced on island, this means that so much product can be lost to spoilage.

Pictured: Me amongst some of the early machinery Mott Green modified to make chocolate out of Grenadian estate farmed cocoa. I know that to some it may not mean much but when I look at it I see what happens when vision meets determination and births a thriving business that grows a national economy!

The Grenadian raw organic cocoa market is expanding every day as demand continues to grow worldwide. Yet less cocoa will be bought from our farmers, if there is no way to turn the raw produce into a marketable good before the very climate that makes it great, also sends it back to ground. This is leaving our local farmers with so much high scale product and no one to whom they can sell it.

So how do we fix it?

Invest in alternative drying methods. As a Caribbean island (Big up 473 Pure Grenada the Isle of Spice!) I believe that solar powered cocoa drying facilities could be utilize to diminish cocoa being lost to spoilage.

Build facilities uniquely tailored to the storage and drying of said cocoa on the sight of cocoa plantations in an effort to encourage and empower local farmers to produce and sell more dried cocoa. This may require an agricultural grant or loan, material, the relevant training and certification workshops that would encourage farmers to maintain community based cocoa drying facilities.

Increase Promotion of Organic Farming within communities rich in cocoa estates. You see, continued emphasis on organic farming and an investment in drying and storage facilities for Grenadian Chocolate Companies so that they can dry their farmer bought, organic cocoa themselves, can only stand to positively propel the industry into further clean production or world so needs right now. This way, some of the burden can be taken of the local cocoa society to store and dry wet cocoa, farmers may not have to travel as far out of their communities to sell their produce and more home grown, organic cocoa product is available for export alongside local consumption.

I have seen my local cocoa product appreciated in my household for generations. I have smiled as a whole industry has continued to boom around it, expanding far into my past and likely far into my future. Now, the threat exists of extinction due to something that should not daunt a Caribbean industry. The issue of wet cocoa not being sufficiently dried before it is too late can be fixed but are we willing to invest in our food and long term employment? Will we see the longevity of an industry that continues to shower us in promise and national pride?