AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

Al­ready stand­ing on a his­toric and en­vi­able rep­u­ta­tion for the world’s finest co­coa beans, T&T is be­ing pre­pared for the emer­gence of a boom­ing choco­late in­dus­try.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), to­geth­er with the Co­coa Re­search Cen­tre (CRC) yes­ter­day host­ed a foun­da­tion lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the UWI Choco­late Fac­to­ry, at Uni­veristy Field Sta­tion, Mount Hope.

Ac­cord­ing to CRC di­rec­tor Pro­fes­sor Path­manathan Uma­ha­ran, this choco­late fac­to­ry has been in the works for the past decade.

Uma­ha­ran said the fac­to­ry is be­ing built to ma­te­ri­alise the CRC’s re­search, be­ing the world’s old­est co­coa re­search in­sti­tu­tion and cus­to­di­an to the world’s largest col­lec­tion of co­coa (over 2,000 va­ri­eties).

“While we have a glob­al rep­u­ta­tion for the co­coa qual­i­ty that we have, we need to build a rep­u­ta­tion for our choco­late brands and oth­er val­ue-added prod­ucts,” Uma­ha­ran said.

The 100 acres of farm­land con­nect­ed to the UWI Choco­late Fac­to­ry is ex­pect­ed to be a bea­con in re­ju­ve­nat­ing aban­doned old co­coa farms lo­cal­ly and re­gion­al­ly.

“This is one of the few agri­cul­tur­al in­dus­tries that give us a com­par­a­tive ad­van­tage in the glob­al mar­ket and an op­por­tu­ni­ty to earn for­eign ex­change in a sus­tain­able way,” he added.

The co­coa beans cur­rent­ly ex­port­ed on­ly cap­tured 7.8 per cent of the to­tal val­ue chain, which the CRC is hop­ing to ex­pand, along with cre­at­ing em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and aid­ing in the de­vel­op­ment of the rur­al sec­tor.

Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon said the Gov­ern­ment has iden­ti­fied agri­cul­ture and agri-pro­cre­ss­ing as key non-en­er­gy sec­tors that can aid in sus­tain­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic growth.

“There has al­ready been an ex­pan­sion in the ex­port of raw and roast­ed co­coa beans, co­coa pow­der, choco­late in blocks, slabs, bars and co­coa but­ter from $125.3 mil­lion to $156.5 mil­lion from 2021-2022. So the growth is there,” Gopee-Scoon said.

EU Am­bas­sador to T&T Pe­ter Cavendish told Guardian Me­dia that the EU firm­ly be­lieves in the qual­i­ty of co­coa beans from T&T and rat­ed it as the best in the world.

This was proven through the EU’s con­tri­bu­tion of €250 thou­sand to the CRC’s pro­cure­ment of ma­chin­ery to be used in the fac­to­ry.

Ac­cord­ing to CRC, the choco­late fac­to­ry will be a part of its In­ter­na­tion­al Fine Co­coa In­no­va­tion Cen­tre, which will house a mu­se­um of co­coa plants, a co­coa tourism cen­tre, a restau­rant, labs and a ‘choco­late acad­e­my’ that will host in­ter­ac­tive short cours­es in choco­late mak­ing.

The con­struc­tion of the choco­late fac­to­ry is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed and com­mis­sioned in Jan­u­ary 2024.