Help small cocoa farmers make a living

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.