Starter Kit. Idea 146 of 500. Cluster 6
Cocoa from the wet zone processed into bean-to-bar chocolate on the island
The mechanism, from the book
Dilmah says it earns over 3 times the national average price for tea, because it does its own blending, branding and packing. The proof has been sitting inside the industry all along.
The first step
Find the cocoa farmers in the wet zone near you and ask what they sell beans for and to whom. Buy 10 kg, ferment and dry a batch properly, and make bars with a tabletop grinder. Give tasting squares to two hotel pastry chefs and a café owner and ask whether they would buy a bar made from one named farm, and at what price. That price decides it.
- Who pays first
- A hotel or café that wants chocolate made on the island from one named farm, to sell to its visitors.
- What leaves today
- Cocoa leaves as raw beans, and the grinding, refining and branding that multiply their value happen in the countries that buy them.
Ask first
- Department of Export Agriculture. Ask which cocoa growers in the wet zone sell beans in small lots.
- the area Medical Officer of Health. Ask what hygiene standard a chocolate kitchen must meet.
Check before you spend
That cocoa supply is steady and the beans are fermented well, that the kitchen meets hygiene expectations, and what labels each market needs.
Find out these three numbers
- What do shops pay for a bean-to-bar chocolate?
- How much cocoa can wet-zone growers supply?
- What does small chocolate-making equipment cost?
A comparison from the book
Zermatt. Chapter Five
"a very small bar of chocolate cost 5 francs. Shaped like the mountain."
Chocolate with a story of place sells at a price plain chocolate never reaches.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.