Farmers submits cocoa beans for gold medal
A record number of farmers have submitted their cocoa beans for a chance to win gold at this year’s Bougainville Chocolate Festival 2018.
At the close of entries today, around 100 cocoa farmers and groups from across the region had submitted their 3kgs of beans for production into chocolate, including from remote Nissan Islands and Torokina.
Festival co-chair and Secretary for Economic Development, Steven Tsivele, said he was absolutely delighted at the record level of participation and hoped to see even more chocolate makers attend this year’s Festival as well.
“I congratulate our cocoa farmers on their hard work and taking the opportunity to test their beans against international standards,” Mr Tsivele said
“Our beans have always been famous for size, quality and taste.”
Last year chocolate made from Bougainville beans was awarded gold medals at two international competitions.
Mr Tsivele said this was one of the big achievements of the Festival connecting farmers to international chocolatiers.
“The Festival is a government initiative to rebuild Bougainville’s cocoa industry, as a direct way to put money into the pockets of farming communities and improve our economy and reputation,” Mr Tsivele said.
“We have seen this from the last couple of years and we believe we can do more.
2017 gold medallist Charles Bisiko from Central Bougainville said his beans were now getting a much better prices from buyers.
“This year I’m looking forward to keeping our gold medal status,” Mr Bisiko said.
As a result of the Bougainville Chocolate Festival connecting farmers to markets, Bougainville beans can now be found in high quality, single source chocolate made in the UK, Europe and Australia.
The Bougainville Chocolate Festival will be held in Buka this year, 21-22nd September, and for the first time include chocolate making demonstrations with newly purchased equipment by the ABG with support from Australia, New Zealand and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) under the “Bougainville Cocoa Value Chain Project’’.
The Festival aims to be educational for farmers to improve production quality, but also fun for families with entertainment and chocolate tasting - where international judges assess the chocolate produced from the cocoa beans of different Bougainville farmers.
The Bougainville Chocolate Festival is an initiative of the Autonomous Bougainville Government led by the Departments of Primary Industries and Economic Development, in partnership with the governments of Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand.
Find out more information on Facebook/Bougainville Chocolate Festival
[i][i]Jasper + Myrtle’s Nunu Chocolate Black Opal won the 2017 Gold Medal at the Academy of Chocolate Awards in London while the Nunu Chocolate Twilight won the 2017 Gold Medal at the Australian Foods Awards.
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