The Grenada Chocolate Company Ltd

The Grenada Chocolate Factory was founded in 1999 with the idea of creating an Organic Cocoa Farmers' and Chocolate Makers Cooperative. They produce high quality Organic dark chocolate with their world famous cocoa beans. The factory nestles in pristine rainforest. 

The award-winning organic dark chocolate has the wonderful complex flavour of Grenada's fine-flavored organic cocoa beans, processed carefully in small batches. Producing chocolate right where the cocoa grows allows them to do their own fermenting which gives a real advantage in creating the finest taste from the beans. They use their own extracted cocoa butter.

The factory has over 150 acres of organic cocoa farms in the cooperative and operates its own cocoa fermentry, located one mile from the little factory. This insures they perform every activity involved in the production of their chocolate, from the planting and growing of the cocoa trees to the fermenting of the fresh cocoa beans to the processing of the fine dark chocolate. Cocoa is grown totally naturally without the use of any chemical pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers and they have been Certified Organic.

The sugar is a fine organic raw sugar produced and milled by the organic growers' cooperative in Paraguay.

Whole organic vanilla beans grown biodynamically in Costa Rica provide the "dash" of vanilla.

Organic soy lecithin is used as emulsifier in extremely small amounts.

Grenada Chocolate is one of the only small-scale chocolate-makers producing fine chocolate where the cocoa grows. Because small batch chocolate-making is very rare, they had to create their own processing methods, designing their own machines and refurbishing antique equipment to meet the requirements of their unique situation. Most of the machines are based in design on those of the early 1900's, a time when quality had precedence over quantity in chocolate-making. Because they care about the environment, they use solar-electric energy to power the machines.

The original impetus and principle of the cooperative company is to revolutionise the cocoa-chocolate system that typically keeps cocoa production separate from chocolate-making and therefore takes advantage of cocoa farmers. They believe that the cocoa farmers should benefit as much as the chocolate-makers.

They won the Academy of Chocolate Awards 2008 Silver Medal in the Best Organic Chocolate Bar category

The Organic Dark Chocolate comes in two strengths:

60% Chocolate: sweet and rich with an intense and complex chocolate flavour

71% Chocolate: strong bitter-sweet with extra fruity cocoa flavour notes

The 71% wrapper, all bars are wrapped by hand

The cocoa tree (theobroma cacao) is indigenous in the equatorial Americas. Cocoa beans were first used by the ancient Mayan and Aztec cultures in what is now southern Mexico. The beans were consumed as a strong, bitter beverage and praised as the "food of the gods."

There are three general categories of cocoa varieties: the Forasteros, the Criollos and the Trinitarios. The Forasteros and Criollos are the original types while the Trinitarios were created when the two crossed accidentally in Trinidad. Because the Forasteros are generally heartier and less disease prone than the Criollos and the Trinitarios, they were chosen to introduce in equatorial Africa, who became the world's main producer.

Forastero cocoa beans have a plain and basic chocolate flavor, known as "bulk" cocoa while Trinitario and Criollo cocoa beans have more complex flavour, known as "fine-flavoured" cocoa. Trinitarios developed to be heartier than the Criollos but also retain their special flavor qualities. Criollo and Trinitario cocoa beans now represent less than 10% of the world's cocoa. The straight-forward chocolate flavor and low price associated with the Forasteros is preferred by milk chocolate makers.

The Criollos and Trinitarios contain extra flavours, embellishing their extra strong chocolate flavour and making them preferable for dark chocolate. Grenada grows these rare and special varieties giving the chocolate deep flavour with extra notes that can be reminiscent of fruits and flowers.

Grenada grows almost entirely Trinitario cocoa with a few Forasteros. It is somewhat mysterious how the same varieties of cocoa come out so different in different places. Grenada has clearly one of the strongest, richest cocoas in the world partially due to the super-rich volcanic soil here and the hot sun. Single origin cocoa bean chocolate is rare, especially when it is one of the best cocoas in the world Along with careful, small-batch processing, Grenada's cocoa provides the chocolate with a powerful, delicious and intriguing flavour.

ALL IN ALL A TASTE THAT BECOMES A TERRIBLE HABIT