Trinidad and To­ba­go won first prize in the cat­e­go­ry of "spicy" in the pres­ti­gious Salut du Choco­lat in Paris, France, on Fri­day. It was one of three co­coa sam­ples nom­i­nat­ed for fi­nal recog­ni­tion at the In­ter­na­tion­al Co­coa Awards Edi­tion 2011. This coun­try's co­coa beans have ex­celled at the Show for the third year in a row, hav­ing won first place in the cat­e­gories of "sweet­ness" and "fruity" in 2009 and first place in "fruity" and "flo­ral" last year. Sen­a­tor Vas­ant Bharath, Min­is­ter of Food Pro­duc­tion, Land and Ma­rine Af­fairs left yes­ter­day to be part of the pre­mier an­nu­al event and to re­ceive the award on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Sen­a­tor Bharath is al­so ex­pect­ed to meet with Choco­late Hous­es' rep­re­sen­ta­tives and par­tic­i­pate in the cel­e­bra­tions of the 17th An­niver­sary of the Paris In­ter­na­tion­al Salut du Choco­lat in Porte de Ver­sailles, France.

The Paris In­ter­na­tion­al Sa­lon du Choco­lat and the Pro­fes­sion­al Choco­late Show are the world's largest events ded­i­cat­ed whol­ly to pro­fes­sion­als in the choco­late in­dus­try and to co­coa pro­duc­ing coun­tries. The co­coa in­dus­try in the Caribbean is made up of nine co­coa pro­duc­ing coun­tries, in­clud­ing Be­lize, the Com­mon­wealth of Do­mini­ca, Cu­ba, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Grena­da, Haiti, Ja­maica, St Lu­cia and Trinidad and To­ba­go. Five of these coun­tries car­ry the dis­tin­guished sta­tus of ex­clu­sive ex­porters of fine or flavour co­coa, as de­ter­mined by the In­ter­na­tion­al Co­coa Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IC­CO)-the Com­mon­wealth of Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, Ja­maica, St Lu­cia and Trinidad and To­ba­go. Oth­er mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go del­e­ga­tion are Cyn­thra Per­sad, Di­rec­tor, Co­coa and Cof­fee In­dus­try Board (CCIB) and Pa­tri­cia Ma­haraj, Agron­o­mist, Co­coa Re­search Unit, Re­search Di­vi­sion, Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion, Land and Ma­rine Af­fairs.