Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
On a hillside overlooking Lake Itasy, an hour's drive from the capital, a Greek entrepreneur called Christos Spiliopoulos persuades me that it will. A former manager with TAF, he was born in Madagascar and has spent much of his life there. 'My first objective now is coffee,' he says. 'My aim is to make the best in Madagascar and hopefully the world! It is an obsession.' By next year, the self-taught coffee grower hopes to have 200,000 plants producing first-class arabica - the gourmet's choice, already grown in Madagascar for the domestic market - from his estate in the mountains. There, he shows me various experiments, growing coffee in different habitats - in sunlight, in shade, among soya plants (good for nitrogen), under a ylang-ylang tree - to find out where it thrives. Under a shady pergola, he tends his 60,000 nursery saplings as if they are temperamental orchids. The climate, soil, flora of the area, and agroforestry farming practices all contribute to its single-origin habitat – along with post-harvesting fermentation and drying process that are critical to the flavour development. Subsequent roasting, grinding, and conching shapes the fine flavour, aroma and mouthfeel experience of Madagascar chocolate.
Private investments since 2005 with Malagasy company Chocolaterie Robert SA created Africa's first exports of world class Chocolate . Exporting world class Chocolat from the Madagascar origin creates a much greater economic benefit for the Malagasy people than just exporting cocoa only , raising the value at origin by many times, RaiseTrade. ORIGIN+. Winners of the Golden Bean for the single origin 100% bar, the fruity fine flavour cacao is selected from the independent cacao farmers of Sambirano – Grand cru de Sambirano and fermented and dried ( single origin), carefully roasted, ground and conched without chemical manipulation (alkalisation) or added flavours, thereby preserving of integrity of flavours and more flavanols, under the direction of Chocolatier Hery Andriamampianina. I waited few days and tried the same product again and once more the symthoms appeared to proof I was not wrong. We bounce down potholed roads in Madagascar on our way to a cacao plantation, passing women dressed in bright reds and yellows selling fruit and vegetables under grass huts. Small yards are covered in drying and fermenting cacao seeds on their way to becoming chocolate.Since 1920, these farms produce world-famous aromatic cocoa and today most of the top chefs and chocolate makers around the world use cocoa from this estate. Besides 300 tons of Trinitario cocoa produced every year, a very limited quantity of Criollo beans – 2 tons per year – is harvested separately to make this chocolate. It has a very expressive cocoa aroma with subtle fruity-sweet tartness and pleasant flavour notes that evoke citrus and red berries. AWARDS: Overseeing this quality are 23 'preparateurs', supervised foremen who don't just collect the beans, weigh them and pay the planters (as the old 'collecteurs' or middlemen did before, often short-changing the farmers by tampering with the scales) but select them for quality, ferment them and dry them at special treatment units provided by Ramex. 'It's a system I introduced two years ago,' Mamy explains, 'to switch the emphasis to quality rather than weight. Our preparateurs are paid a bonus if they deliver consistently high-quality dried beans - and we've invested a lot of money in this system. We have three technicians on motorcycles, visiting each of the 23 treatment units twice a week.' Exclusive to Henley Bridge the range is now available in chocolate drop format to make it easier for bakers, pastry chefs and chocolatiers to use in their creations. Manufacturing accounts for a great deal of the finished product’s taste so the risk, says Pralus, is to ruin a very good bean with mediocre processing. Starting from scratch is an onerous task, even for experienced hands. Pralus, who has a small cocoa plantation on the island of Nosy Be in north-west Madagascar, says that he gave up on plans to build a chocolate factory there because of the difficult business climate – the country is ranked 164 out of 189 countries for ease of doing business according to the World Bank. The new idea of single-origin chocolate means that all the ingredients in the couverture (the wholesale/bulk cocoa used by chefs, chocolatiers etc) must come from the same country and be processed locally.
In Madagascar – the fourth largest island in the world and twice the size of the UK – cocoa farmers are turning to agroforestry methods to improve yields and sustain the island’s fragile ecosystem by increasing biodiversity. The country’s slash-and-burn approach to farming is evident in an endless stretch of treeless rice patties; some cacao parcels where more progressive growing practices haven’t been introduced contain small trees bearing little fruit.Caramel and butterscotch flavours lead in the tasting, with pronounced lactic notes too. The creamy-caramel-butter notes lead and continue right through into the aftertaste. It's here the flavour is augmented slightly by notes of vanilla and toffee. MIA’s mission is to reset what it claims is an unfair balance in global cocoa production with 70% of the crop grown in Africa, but only 1% of the chocolate made on the continent. By making chocolate from bean-to-bar in Africa, MIA says it creates much more value than the export of raw cocoa beans and supports the creation of skilled jobs locally from chocolate making to printing ... to the service industry – on a continent where a single income can support an entire family. Kelsall said that, after his presentation at ISM, Chocolat Madagascar has a number of new European distributors interested in retail. The Cassam Chenai family is originally from the Gujarat province of western India, and have lived in Madagascar for five generations. Having started by manufacturing postcards, the family moved into the textile trade before exporting spices. As time went by, the family grew larger and some members began to seek their own fortunes. In 2006, Shahin – a member of the 4th generation born on this beautiful island – decided to launch his dream project of producing fine chocolate with one of the most beautiful jewels of our country, the fine cocoa beans of the Sambirano region. Menakao’s Sourcing
We walk as quietly as we can in the dark through the plantation, cacao trees sprouting football-shaped red-and-orange pods from their trunks. Madagascar’s premium fruit-flavored heirloom variety of cacao, called criollo, needs shade to tolerate the extreme heat, and companion planting has been practiced a long time for that variety. Equitrade also has its critics - the main objection being that its integrity rests with those who already have money, power and influence. Malagasy, for example, is described as a 'partnership' between Noetic Associates and the Ramanandraibe family - which owns not just the Ambanja export business but the chocolate factory in the capital (Chocolaterie Robert) where Malagasy bars are made. Another supporter is Marc Ravalomanana, the president of Madagascar - a country with a turbulent history, even by the breathtaking standards of other tropical islands where Marxist leaders have literally fought to fill the political vacuum after colonial rule. Chocolat Madagascar is primarily a B2B company and started working with HB ingredients, based in Lewes, East Sussex in 2013, to help with exports of its couverture and bars to the UK and the rest of Europe. It provides less than 0.2% of world’s cacao, the more pure form of cocoa, in the shape of criollo-trinitario & forastero cultivars beans that are renowned for the island’s own (Malagasy) distinctive aroma and fruity fine flavours.
Navigation menu
However, it is an alert to the company. When you label a product, costumers trust it. If you say it is VEGAN, and the list of ingredients does not mention milk, I trust your product. To find out more on MIA, listen to our podcast interview with Brett – or visit the company at ISM, Hall 4.2, Stand J050 April 23-25 at the Koelnmesse.
If you can't buy chocolate in Madagascar, various chocolate makers in other countries offer Madagascar cocoa based chocolate, either made from bean to bar or from pre-crushed cocoa exported from Madagascar. However, such brands are mostly available in specialised gourmet chocolate stores, usually at relatively high prices. According to the World Resources Institute, one 200-gram bar of dark chocolate made from cocoa from a cleared rainforest contributes the CO2 equivalent of a petrol-driven car travelling just five miles.
Sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, cream powder, emulsifier (soya lecithins), vanilla extract. Cocoa solids: 46% minimum; milk solids: 18% minimum. For the discerning consumer, the single origin or single estate or single terroir chocolate tasting journey is interesting, offering three-dimensional flavours,” says Kelsall, “ that lingers on the tongue.” Cocoa was introduced to the island of Madagascar by the French in the 19th century. The majority of the cacao plantations in existence today are run by descendants of the same families who have been growing and harvesting the beans for generations. Flavor Profile of Madagascar Chocolate
Great Deal 
New Comment