Trinidad & Tobago Fine Cocoa Company launches in the UK

The Trinidad & Tobago Fine Cocoa Company (TTFCC) has announced the UK as a strategic market for its single estate chocolate.

The project is a public-private partnership with the government of Trinidad and Tobago; UK Foreign Office; investment promotion agency InvesTT Trinidad & Tobago, and the Export & Import Bank of Trinidad & Tobago with the sole aim of rehabilitating the cocoa sector in the country.

Ashley Parasram, director of TTFCC, is encouraging chefs to raise the profile of single origin cocoa and help revive an industry and to link chefs and chocolatiers directly to individual estates creating a ‘patron' model for the small-scaled farmer whom previously was not able to generate sufficient income from their beans.

The cocoa mass, couverture, cocoa powder and cocoa butter are produced from pure high grade Trinitario beans and are available to exclusive operators in the UK and Europe via a new state-of-the-art facility situated within the 200 hectare La Reunion Cocoa Estate in Central Trinidad, a Salon du Chocolat award-winner.

"We are developing rigorous quality control standards across all our partner cocoa estates, with established management of the beans, the fermentation period and the whole process from plantation to final product, said Parasram.

"This includes a ‘chain-of-custody' tracking system which allows the chef to trace the couverture from each pack back to the point of harvest."

To help navigate which flavour profile a chef prefers, TTFCC produces test bars of the various partner estates. It can then work directly with the farmer and processing facility to ensure quality and fine tune a recipe to the chef's specification.