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May 3, 2024

Cocoa is trading at $9,000 per MT.  The price outlook remains bullish (positive price pressure).  For farmers to make the best profits, they need to produce the highest quality beans possible.  If cocoa is fermented properly, the beans develop the maximal.  There are three determinants.

First Determinant of Quality:  proper harvesting.  If the pod is too ripe, it lacks the sugars to drive a proper fermentation.

Second Determinant of Quality:  dry the beans properly.  For best results, dry under the sun.  Artificial heating tends to lock acetic acid inside the beans. 

Third Determinant of Quality:  triage.  This means removing material that will add bad flavors.  Small and insect-riddled beans burn easily, for example.

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March 25, 2024.

The Dividing Line--between country and city, between commodity and product.

Principe island--where chocolate started in Africa.  Fitzwilliam Owen, the man who established a cocoa producing colony on Fernando Po (Bioko).  Tetteh. Quarshie.  ICCO.

Importance of certifications (NOT).  PH&F solution:  remove the city-country division.  Importance of the FFGCCC to the international chocolate market.  Will the PH&F model remove the existential barrier?  No if chocolate is only sold locally.  Yes if chocolate is sold to the FFGCCC countries.

Other barriers:  transportation, customs, certification of facilities.

My store in Cordes sur Ciel, a French non-profit.  Breeching the barrier--shipping in refrigerated containers.

Local fund-raising efforts:  (a talk at Chateau de Bouscaillous.

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February 4, 2024

Components of Taste:

Flavors:  perinasal and retronasal.  Neural cells in the two olfactory regions.  Identification of aromas.  The role of the amygdala in the Proustian Effect.  

Taste buds.  Umami.  The four Aristotelian tastes.  Mixtures of tastes.

Texture.  Resistance to bite, size of particles causing grittiness.  How fat makes gelato taste smoother.  Chocolate notes (roasty, fruity, nutty).  Crystallization of cocoa butter:  how it affects the texture of chocolate.  Why does "young chocolate" melt in the mouth but "old chocolate" has a waxy texture?

News about PH&F:  sales numbers for  Depa and Pezoan and N'Douci

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December 14, 2023

An interview with Dave Congalton on KEBC in San Luis Obispo.  Peggie Pappathakis and I talked about the industry, including worst forms of child labor, child slavery and the poverty of the. cocoa farmer.

We also talked about the Bean To Bar industry.  

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November 5, 2023.

The current chocolat revolution is called "The Bean-to-Bar Revolution". Here are six Interviews with pioneers who contributed to it.  I interviewed them at the 2023 Salon du Chocolat in Paris.

Andal Balu (USA): how she contributed to the use of the Indian wet grinder to enable the bean-to-bar revolution.

Maxime Elegbede (Benin):  a Beninien banker who dove into chocolate after trying to sell teak trees.  He started a business, Okochoko (chocolate farm).

Ndeh Dieudonné (Cameroon):  director of Soctracao in Cameroon. He has trained many women and men in cocoa transformation in 7 villages in the main cocoa production area.  Women have particularly benefitted by becoming economically independent.

Neal Kelsall (Madagascar):  developing strategies to reduce cost of transportation.  Superiority of small-batch cocoa butter.  Strategy to be the best.  Message to consumers:  fresh.  Short line between the farm and the producer.

Michael Poole (USA):  a chef who does corporate gifts, Seattle, WA.  Teaches chocolate making.

Alain D'Aboville (France):  building a small chocolate factory in Haiti.  Making chocolate at the origin is a fascinating proposition because bringing the farmer up the value chain can effect change.

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October 3, 2023

Interview with Evariste Plegnon.  2005-2008:  Evariste and I visited 12 villages.

Interviews with Anna and Katie Nakayama.  She raised about $2,000 from her church to buy four dryness meters.  Part of the 5,000 Villages idea;  solving two problems, weight and dryness.  Interview with Katie Nakayama, Anna's sister.  Her impressions.

Interview with Bob Peak, an Osage Indian.  Changing the idea:  building a rice hulling center and a small chocolate room in Pezoan.  The anger of Pezoan's chief.

Building the building in Pezoan.  Interview with Servando, the manager of the Pezoan facility.  Teaching Servando how to make chocolate.  Formation of the cooperative.  Description of his hopes to become a chocolate-producing facility.

CONCLUSION:  there is no reason for the cocoa farmer to remain a victim of the marketplace.

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August 6, 2023

Located in N'Douci--90 minutes from Abidjan.

End goal:  Development of a new brand--Chocolat des Villages.

Immediate goal:  to make cocoa-growing economically viable by bringing the cocoa farmer up the value chain.

Monday--Meeting with Technoserve.  Tuesday--N'Douci:  setting up the mini-factory.  Wednesday:  retrieve money to pay electrician;  trip to Issia.  Thursday--entire day at SOCOPLAN.  Friday--SCAP in Pezoan.  Saturday--production in N'Douci;  description of many challenges.  Sunday--How Klaus saved the day;  Tempering and molding class;

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May 8, 2023

5 businesses that I have opened during my lifetime.

Projet Espoir et Equité, opened in 2020.

"You cannot start wholesale."  Le Comptoir du Cacao--May 1, 2023

Description of products:  pastries, chocolates, drinks, ice creams and sorbets.

Alkalizing cocoa beans--a Faustian bargain.

How to make palmiers.

Next trip to Côte d'Ivoire.

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March 18, 2023

Lunch in Tricase Porto--south of Lecce

Visiting a gluten-free store, a mozzarella store, Basilica di Santa Croce.

Visiting Ostuni, Lunch in Gallipoli

Extolling spumoni:  Gallipolian versus Sicilian versions.

Carnevale in Gallipoli:  the story of the lethal meatball.

Notes about Tiramisu, cannolis, anchovy pizza and the search for perfection.

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March 11, 2023

Column donated by Brindici to Lecce--history.  Statue of Orontius (Oronzo).  Amphitheater (built in 2nd century).  Porta Rudiae.

Little food stories.  

The sad olive trees of Sorento.  Who is at fault?

Driving south from Lecce--to Otranto.  The martyrs of Otranto.  Santa Cesarea Terme--turquoise waters of the Ionian Sea.  Words about cornetti.  Supersano:  having lunch in a farm restaurant.  Galatina:  the purpose of fresco (frescoes).  In search of a relic for the altar.

News of PH&F.  

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