Cocoa farmers ready for chocolate festival
Cocoa farmers across Bougainville are gearing up for the fourth annual Bougainville Chocolate Festival.
A key event of the festival is the annual Chocolate Competition, where beans from across the three regions will be processed into chocolate for judging by a panel of international chocolatiers.
The Festival Committee has received more than seventy dry bean samples this year from cocoa farmers for the Chocolate Competition, which has gone through a set of assessment criteria to assess various quality attributes.
This year has seen very promising improvement on overall bean quality from the samples that were submitted, with almost sixty percent of the samples being selected for chocolate processing by the Mini Chocolate Lab established under the Bougainville Department of Primary Industries.
In 2018, the festival had five gold winners from the Chocolate Competition, who had their cocoa beans certified as gold class according to international standard. 2018 gold winner Steven Saveke, says cocoa farmers must be encouraged to work together and aim to produce high quality cocoa.
“Our farmers must be encouraged to spend more time in their cocoa blocks and take good care of their cocoa. Farmers must share ideas, work together and move forward,” he said.
Since 2016, the Bougainville Chocolate Festival has been linking the best quality producing farmers with international cocoa buyers and chocolate makers.
This year, Steven Saveke’s gold winning beans were purchased and sent to seven different chocolate makers in Australia, who used the beans to produce various chocolate products. Steven was then flown to Melbourne, Australia to attend a Taste and Tell Event and also meet with the different chocolate makers.
Festival Co-chair and Secretary for Economic Development, Steven Tsivele, says a key aim of the festival is to connect Bougainville cocoa farmers and their world class cocoa beans to international markets and buyers.
“The annual festival has been successful in both increasing international exposure to Bougainville’s fine quality cocoa, and also led to improvements in the quality and yield of beans by local farmers. As a result of the interaction between farmers and international chocolate makers, Bougainville beans are once again winning awards in chocolate festivals around the world,” Mr Tsivele said.
The Bougainville Chocolate Festival is an initiative of the Autonomous Bougainville Government, with the support of the Governments of Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand.
The Festival will be held over two days 07 – 08 August 2019, in Arawa Town, the former capital of Bougainville.
Festival updates and information will be posted on Facebook/BougainvilleChocolateFestival and www.abg.gov.pg
Caption: Cocoa farmers will have the chance to see how chocolate is made from start to finish, at the mini chocolate-processing lab that will be set up at the festival.
[ Back to News ]
