Help small cocoa farmers make a living

In our last update a few months ago I was mentioning the imminent arrival of our 1977 stone grinder manufactured in Germany and sailed through to Vanuatu from Hungary where it was used to produce for chocolate waffles. The beast weights 3t and was delivered in a 40ft container completing our buildings set-up. A few pictures are worth thousand words and here you can see the landing of the container at active center. Not to mention that to get there, we had to deal with a bit of landscaping (enlarge the road) and not less than three attempts with two trucks getting stuck at the bottom of our land in the mud.

Once the container was delivered, real work started for us with the dismantling and reconditioning of that old piece of equipment. It is a weird feeling to dismount a machine you purchased based on pictures and discover the amplitude of work to be done, remember pictures always shows the nice side of the story. To make it a little more colorful and tasty, once we opened the machine to access the bearing and hidden corners, we had to remove about six bags full of waffles, chocolate and industrial grease from the bearings. Who ever said food grade certifications are better enforced in the first world? At least I will never ever see chocolate waffles the same way.

After a consequent amount of cleaning, recurring, sanding and drying, we finally managed to uncover the steel frame and serial numbers. The beauty of having the machine in an empty container under tropical latitudes is that is also works perfectly for painting job as in a natural oven. The only issue is that everything in the container including the guy painting gets cooked. Though after a few week-ends and kilos lost, here is the result and we truly believe it will be a masterpiece for our visitors to see in operations. It will grind about 200kg of chocolate beans per batch and transform them in delicate flavors and rich dark chocolate for your pleasure.

To finish the chapter on chocolate machinery, we are still waiting for our 500l conching tank and a tempering machine flying all the way from Italy. Both are on their way and should arrive within a few weeks. These are the last pieces of equipment we need to start the production and we are looking forward to it.

Now about cooling chocolate under tropical latitudes, let me elaborate. Chocolate making is a process that implies hot temperatures from the fermentation at 45 to 60 degree Celsius to roasting at about 120deg. and finally melanging and conching and tempering at about 45 where chocolate is liquid. Now to obtain shiny chocolate bars, it takes one more step that is cooling. Normally, in a prosper business you just go to your local supplier and by a cool room for the decent price of the material and handwork supplied, plug it to the grid and off you go. Now when you leave in Vanuatu wher everything is possible but slightly more complicated, you can either import your cool room from foreign suppliers or spend some time in research and built it yourself. At ACTIV prosperity will come but for now the budgets are tight and we are huge fan of the DIY. Thus after a few hours and e-mails exchanged with friends at Bahen.co a chocolate maker from western Australia who helped us from day one, we found another way to do it. It involves recycling (which we love), a bit of time and small investment.

Now let us tell you how your money was spent. An average cooling room of 250x250x300cm would cost you about 6000USD which would then raise to about USD 11000 including transport and taxes in Vanuatu. It is made of several layers of insulating foams and coatings and has a cooling system that is almost identical to your traditional air conditioner. Though the way we do it is simple, we pay a visit to our beloved hardware stores in town and collect as many as possible of these polystyrene foams used to protect imported equipment such as fridges and other fancy appliances. A truck full of foam, you buy a few rolls of fiberglass, a dozen pieces of treated pine timber and a box full of screws. Last you need a few cement sheets for a nice finish inside and out. Total bill is slightly over US 400bucks and a few smiles for the polystyrene foam (we will pay them in chocolate bars later).

For the cooling system now, word of mouth is your best allies. You try find someone who wants to get rid of its old-style air conditioning block, you know, those looking like your grandma’s TV screen and going all the way through the wall of your house? Well these are still quite common around here and it didn’t take long to find one. Now the last trick come from a small box ordered on the all mighty internet that is used to shunt the thermostat of your air conditioner and make it run like crazy to get the temperature as low as you need it. The beauty of chocolate making is that you only need 13deg c to reach your goal and that is not far from the usual specs of classic air-cons (16-25deg range).

As we speak we are still working on the cooling room, the frame has been built and the layers of polystyrene dispatched all around. The next step is to cover it in fiber glass and finish with cement sheets and cooling system installation.

That will be all for today, funding wise we are still looking for some support to acquire more of these silicon moulds we use for the chocolate bars and finalize the design of the packaging. 

We thank you all for your continuous support.

With love from Vanuatu.

Building continues as we speak at Aelan Chocolate Makers workshop thanks to your generous contribution. It has been a tuff month; we are working under time constraint with a new container arriving soon to complete the set-up of the Chocolate Factory.

The boys are giving all they have relentless in sanding, painting, punching nails, grinding and sculpting the red wood Cohu posts supporting the last piece of roof to cover the terrace that will welcome our visitors soon.

We now have proper sanitarians running on rain water collected in a 1000l tank. We always strive to push our convictions in sustainable development and as we say, devil is in details though we thought instead of using conventional water we will take the lead and show communities around how to properly collect rain water and use it for several purposes. It is now done and one more baby step that brings us closer to the opening.

Sandrine (our president) and I had a very encouraging meeting with the representative of the cruise ship company running the lines from Australia to Vanuatu. Their economical impact is huge, we are talking over 100 boats loaded with 1500 to 3000 tourists arriving in Vanuatu throughout the year. They are interested in promoting local products and would like to have our chocolate samples to test and eventually sell on board. What an achievement for us and our communities.

Last but not least, A team of farmers from Erromango, one of the south islands, approached us a few month ago, interested in re-habilitating their cocoa plantations. We traveled them to Epi to spend a week at Joseph’s model plantation to learn the basics of growing and fermenting cocoa. A team from Epi then traveled south to Erromango to inspect a trial plantation and start a nursery and the pruning of existing trees to put it back in shape. A very encouraging result and promising relation.

Our last piece of work focused on finding the appropriate equipment to complete our production line. Thanks to valuable advices received from our mentors and friends in westerns Australia, Bahen.co, we are now clear on the last machines to order and get shipped over Vanuatu.

To finish this report, we just received confirmation that our granite stone melangeur has arrived in Vanuatu waters, I can literally see the Cargo vessel in the bay, and will offload on Tuesday. We will keep you posted and send you pictures of this epic day when it reaches ACTIV center as the machine is 3t weight and will be quite challenging to get in place.

Thanks to all of you for your continuous support.

With love from Vanuatu.