From the Plantations to You

Rancho Grande: Our cocoa beans are 85% fermented in wooden cases and exclusively sun-dried. Farmers do not force the drying of the beans with "blowers" generated from gas. As a result, the acidity is minimized in the cocoa beans.

We work in steps with the audits of the Rainforest Alliance. As an incentive for certification, farmers are being informed of Vintage Plantations' willingness to form partnerships with them, once they are certified. Among these, we select small farms, or small groups of farmers that are willing to ferment their cocoa according to our methods. We recognize that a controlled fermentation is key to create a high quality chocolate.

Our Roasting Batch Process: Our cocoa beans are being loaded onto the conveyor belt to the 3-chamber roaster.

We visit our farmers regularly, several times a year, and are in constant communication to discuss the climate patterns and how to ferment the next harvest. Our farmers only select the mature pod on the tree to ensure optimum flavor development. This also prevents over-bitterness. We only process one harvest from one group at a time. This means that we must wait until we have enough cocoa beans fermented and sun-dried to start our roasting process. Hence we follow a batch process system, which in time could mean we are out of stock until the next harvest. Fortunately, in the tropics, flowers blossom at regular intervals on the cocoa trees, and several times per year. Hence, it is possible to have several harvests in one year.

Farmers are being paid directly and we post our payments on the Rainforest Alliance website. We do not purchase our cocoa beans from intermediaries or export trade offices, unlike major companies, which cannot afford — due to sheer volume — to follow a farmer's batch-to-batch process. Therefore, the revenues for the farms is much higher than if they had sold their cocoa to a middle man. Payment includes a premium for the certification and is pre-paid to the farmers. This means we circumvent the existing “trade route" to make sure the farmers receive their dues.

Redesigning the commodity chain and logistical chain to bring the cocoa bean from processing at the plant was our biggest challenge and still is. We proceed by trial and error and have failed many times. It took us 12 years to finally feel we are directly impacting the livelihood of farmers and subsequently protecting their environment.

Once we are happy with the test roast, we roast and winnow our beans (shell the skin) and then we end up with our nibs.

These nibs are then ground in a pre-grinder. We then ground them a second time with our cane sugar in a 5-roll refiner. In order to achieve a high smoothness and a good viscosity of the chocolate, it is absolutely necessary to pre-grind and refine the liquor, prior to conching the mass.