Imagine if every cocoa farmer from Honduras to Philippines, knew how to make chocolate and had access to the equipment to do so.
So it’s mid November and I’m back amongst the blind bends and honey bees of Grenada. In between travelling around and connecting with local farmers I was busy rehabilitating the Tri Island cocoa farm in St. David’s.
As promised, I managed to make time to touch base with my chocolate maker friends Kim and Lylette from Crayfish Bay Estate, who I’d met earlier in the year at the Grenada Chocolate Festival. They had previously invited me up to their farm, so I was determined to visit them on this trip.
At the same time my friend Ingrid was coming to visit, who was writing an article on Guadeloupe for her media outlet in France and was keen to see what the Tri Island chocolate project was all about. Once she arrived, we jumped in the 4×4 to spend sometime at the Crayfish Bay Estate. Here she would experience the northern part of the island and reality of life on a cocoa farm.
Upon arrival, Kim and Lylette mentioned that they were having some issues with their chocolate making equipment and were minutes away from launching an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, as they needed a replacement grinder to continue production of their chocolate making. The chocolate gods were shining on Kim and Lylette that day, as we now had Ingrid a journalist, another guest who was already staying at the farm and a documentary maker and myself (digital marketeer/cocoa farmer/chocolate maker) combined to make the perfect team to get the campaign off to a flying start. We got together within hours of touching down and began editing copy, within 48 hours had created a campaign video to launch on the platform.
During our visit Kim mentioned he was keen to open source all of the methods/equipment he’d built or adapted to create chocolate, as he realised there were many people across the world particularly many farmers, who would love to make chocolate but just didn’t know the process or the equipment available at an affordable price to be able to make commercial quality chocolate.
So, armed with my iphone and Kim’s presenting skills we created a series of videos, which are completely open sourced so available to anyone and everyone to learn, adapt and make quality tasting chocolate.
Below are videos that show the equipment and process Kim and Lylette use to make their chocolate, from the roasting, winnowing, tempering to Kim’s adaptation of a vibrating table.
Kim and Lylette want these videos to be shared far and wide, so others who cannot afford to buy equipment off the shelf have an alternative option to make good quality chocolate.