Episode 2 - The Human Element & Hawaii

Episode Highlights

  • (0:40) What is the human element in cacao fermentation?

  • (6:40) How do cacao farms arrange their farms, label beans, and work to enable traceability?

  • (9:20) Sunita discusses her experience in sourcing cacao for a special project with Chloe and Maria.

  • (12:11) How can we grade cacao?  Can we learn from coffee grading?  How can the FCCI help develop systems to assess raw cacao and empower farmers?

  • (19:00) What does coffee grading look like?

  • (20:15) Sunita discusses her recent trip to Hawaii and her visit to Lonohana and Manoa.

  • (29:30) What are the big chocolate industry events and conferences?

  • (31:08) Sunita talks about the state of cacao in Hawaii and the various issues and challenges for the local industry.  

  • (39:00) What does the future of cacao in Hawaii look like?

Favorite Quotations

  • Sunita: “Commodity cacao: there is almost no traceability.  I think in many ways when the big candy companies like Nestle says ‘We don’t know about child labor or child slave labor because we don’t really know where our cacao comes from, it is kind of a cop-out on their parts but I think it is actually true.  I think they don’t know where its come from because there are so many small holders in West Africa who growing cacao and it all gets lumped together and there is no traceability.”

  • Sunita: “There is still very little market that demands and is willing to pay for quality cacao, and so because that is such a recent thing, there is so much going wrong in that communication between buyer, maker, chocolate maker, and the growers.”

  • Sunita: “It is exciting to see people with a passion, cultural sensitivity, an understanding of the bigger picture, and a lot of integrity coming into this, and of course folks who are interested in seeing it happen who are providing the resources to make it happen, that makes Hawaii a really exciting place for better understanding cacao and moving it forward.”  

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Brian Beyke