Our move to buy a cocoa estate goes against the overall trend in the chocolate market, which is to specialise more and more in a particular part of the chocolate making process.
A member of the Hotel Chocolat Tasting Club, Michele Clare was tidying out her husband’s office as he had just retired. Lying under a dusty pile, she saw a 1920 copy of "Cocoa & Chocolate, Their History from Plantation to Consumer". Inscribing “I thought you might like to see this” she posted it to Angus Thirlwell (Co-Founder).
Angus recounts the story from there:
“I was just setting off for a stay with my father, who lives in the West Indies, so slipped the book into my baggage. As a chocolate-obsessed person I couldn’t put the book down once I started it. What I hadn’t realised and what I learned from the book was how common it was for chocolatiers to make their own chocolate from the bean back in the 1920s and what an important cocoa-growing region the West Indies used to be. Since then there have been huge changes - hardly any chocolatiers get involved in the bean any longer, buying all their chocolate ready made from specialist bean converters. Cocoa growing has plummeted in much of the West Indies as bananas and tourism has taken its place. However the beans from this part of the world are high quality, primarily Trinitario.
I thought: why don’t we grow our own cocoa and do the opposite of everyone else? When I got back, I brought up this idea at our next gathering of the Directors and was amazed at the response “What are you waiting for. Let’s get a move on and do it!” Manufacturing Director, John Hadley told me.
We concentrated our search on the West Indies as I grew up there and the islands are largely stable, democratic nations as well as being very beautiful. Research trips to Jamaica, Grenada, St Vincent then followed. After a long and difficult search, we found what looked like an ideal old estate in St Lucia. Co-founder Peter Harris and I shot over and in the face of strong competition signed contracts within a week to buy Rabot Estate from Renée and David Terry. The estate had been in Renée’s family since the 1930s. Contracts were finalised and Rabot Estate became ours in April 2006.
Our move to buy a cocoa estate goes against the overall trend in the chocolate market, which is to specialise more and more in a particular part of the chocolate making process. However we decided to do it for these reasons:
a) We can make it a successful West Indian business in its own right. b) It fits with our Engaged Ethics programme. c) The future battleground in super premium chocolate will be about true chocolate expertise. Our cocoa estate connects the origins of chocolate (cocoa growing) directly with our consumers. We are one of the very few in the world market to do this.
Our plan to make it a successful West Indian business is in three phases:
This phase is quite well advanced. Our Estates Director, Phil Buckley, has recruited and trained a good local team and they have achieved significant success already. Cocoa yields are at least 35% higher due to better management, constant ground clearance, and the trapping of 2,000 cocoa-eating rats! The estate is now run on organic grounds and is working towards accreditation. Reading University, a world expert in cocoa genetics, is helping us in our plan to plant new areas of the estate with the best cocoa possible. A cocoa propagation unit has been set up and cloning and grafting all happens on site. So far 16,000 seedlings have been raised and planted on site. Our first production of chocolate made only with beans from Rabot Estate won a bronze medal in the World Chocolate Awards.
Having turned around the fortunes of the estate, we are now spreading the regeneration through to local cocoa growers. Phil has teamed up with government to run training workshops to farmers’ groups all over St Lucia. In return for achieving Hotel Chocolat quality levels we will commit to buying their cocoa at 30-40% above the world market rate. So far fourty-two local cocoa growers have joined our scheme with more on the way.
This will be located at Rabot Estate and will convert beans from St Lucia and other islands into top quality chocolate. The factory will be set up so that it is suitable to receive large numbers of visitor tours as well as being substantial enough to make enough chocolate to export back to the UK to be sold through our own outlets. We have worked out a way that finished bulk chocolate can be exported by sea so that the carbon footprint of this activity is small. It is a reversal of the normal practise, which is to add all the value in Europe, giving only the value of the commodity to the cocoa growing economy. We will be training local people in chocolate making, using local sugar and milk and creating a whole value chain around this new enterprise.
This second phase has been started with the site of the factory having been selected and foundations due to be dug later this year.
This phase is a few years away and depends upon the success of the first two. We know that many of our chocolate enthusiast customers would like to spend a holiday in the midst of a working cocoa plantation, learning about chocolate as well as being pampered and soothed. The site for this would be between the Pitons on an elevated ridge directly above the successful Ladera hotel.
The government of St Lucia are in full support of all these phases and we are the lead partner in their Cocoa Expansion project.
Sept 2005 Recruitment of Phil Buckley as Estates Director to be based in St Lucia and carry through The Plan
February 2006 Phil Buckley and his wife Judy take up residence in St Lucia and begin the final proceedings to facilitate the purchase of the estate.
April 2006 estate legally becomes ours
May 2006 Work begins on Phase 1: The restoration of the estate
May 2006 Cocoa beans from the first harvest are made into chocolate. They taste good… phew!
May 2006 Rabot Estate chocolate goes on sale in our stores and website in 72% dark and 62% milk formats
July 2006 First cocoa seedling nursery established
July 2006 Rats caught pass the 1,000 mark
August 2006 Marius Felix joins the Rabot Estate management team, as estate overseer
September 2006 Engaged Ethics Cocoa Programme launched to local farmers
October 2006 Rabot Estate 72% Dark Chocolate wins bronze award at the Academy of Chocolate Awards 2006
October 2006 First consignment of The Purist cocoa sticks arrive in UK.
February 2007 13,000 Rabot cocoa tree seedlings planted out
April 2007 The largest cocoa shipment in decades leaves St Lucia comprising a bumper Rabot Estate harvest but also the cocoa from fourty-two local farmers who were the first to join the Engaged Ethics scheme.
June 2007 Rats caught pass the 2,000 mark.
July 2007 Site identified for the chocolate factory within the grounds of Rabot Estate. Phase 2 of The Plan comes closer…
August 2007 Restoration of the c.1745 old estate house finally complete. Phil and Judy can move in now!
September 2007 St Lucian single origin cocoa chocolate goes on sale for the first time ever.
Cocoa Growing at Rabot Estate
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