“Both
are two wonderful products and both, flagship products. There is a world demand
for these products and both have great potential. I think it's really good and
we work with a network of farmers that we encourage. I don't think we can ever
meet the demand given the potential demand based on the landsize of Jamaica”
Founder and CEO of
Mount Pleasant Chocolatiers, Averell French at an event for the 'Countdown to the Food
Awards' on Monday April 22nd 2014, at the Spanish Court Hotel in Kingston
We
now have an official Jamaican candy maker, CEO of Sweetie Confectionary,
Patria-Kay Aarons aka the CVM TV Weathergirl whose products go live in May 2014
as explained in my blog article
entitled “Sweetie
Confectionery CEO Patria-Kaye Aarons to launch Jamaican Flavoured Candy - May
the Force be with the Weather Presenter as it's Cloudy with a Chance of
Meatballs”.
Now
there is finally a replacement for the missing element of Chocolate production
from Cocoa on the island, that being Mount Pleasant Chocolatiers, who actually
began production of Chocolate some six (6) months ago as stated in “French
to fill void for local Chocolate”, published Wednesday, April 16, 2014 BY STEVEN JACKSON Business reporter,
The Jamaica Observer.
Founder
and CEO of Mount Pleasant Chocolatiers Averell French is an architect-turned-Cocoa
Farmer whose here in the island at just the right time. In 2013, the
Inter-American Development Bank gave the Jamaica Cocoa Farmers' Association a
US$1.7-million grant to set up factories to produce chocolate bars and balls.
Jamaican Cocoa farmers still, however, exports Cocoa Beans and parched Coffee
Beans, which many local Coffee makers purchase and process to make bags of
Coffee Beans or bottles of Coffee powder, the main product from Cocoa Beans.
Exports
of Cocoa Beans earn the country some US$1 million in exports. Due to increased
global demand for Cocoa, it’s resulted in a shortage in supply for the fruit
and thus increased prices for the raw Cocoa and processed coffee Beans
themselves. To that end, a value added product such as Chocolate seems a
natural fit on the island, as it helps Cocoa farmers make even more money from
their Cocoa beans.
Averell French the Architect
turned Farmer – Chocolate is the Value Added Product that’s missing from
Jamaica
Apparently
bored out of his skull, a trait atypical of the very intellectual-minded
Londoner, he decided to deviate from his profession and become a Cocoa Farmer,
to quote Averell French: “I decided I didn't want to spend my life in the UK. I
have lived my life there as an architect and I wanted to do something else”.
So
he came back, got some 150 acres of land in the Western side of the Blue Mountains
and put 26 acres under cultivation. At 300 lb of Chocolate per week from his 15
full-time employees since starting production six months ago, his production
from his Chocolate Factory in Bull Bay, St. Thomas is just getting into the
swing of things.
This
as with the right amount of marketing, he’ll soon discover there’s a local
demand for chocolate products as well. Despite the influx of Foreign Chocolate,
like CEO of Sweetie Confectionary, Patria-Kay Aarons, Founder and CEO of Mount
Pleasant Chocolatiers Averell French will discover that many Jamaicans are
interested in high-quality Jamaican made food products, especially sweets!
Currently
he distributes his products up-market to clients such as by Adam & Eve spa
and The Wine Shop, but the general public is yet to taste his Chocolate or even
his Chocolate Wine! I'm yet to see any of his products in supermarkets or on
sale in Stores downtown or even Cross Roads. Until it reaches that level of
ubiquitousness, the same level that Sweetie Confectionary is aiming for in
terms of Local and International Sale orders, he's basically stuck as a niche
market product.
Fortunately,
he doesn’t just produce Chocolate for consumption, but also produces VAS (Value
Added Products) from the Chocolate and Cocoa Powder obtained from milling and
grinding the Cocoa Beans:
1.
Chocolate wine
2.
Cocoa butter
3.
Cocoa nibs
4.
Cocoa powder
5.
Dark chocolate
6.
Face masks
7.
Flavoured chocolate
8.
White chocolate
His
long-term plan is very trial-and-error, as he's taking it all in stride. Mount Pleasant Chocolatiers is, for now,
working the up-market customers until they've got production ramped up. Once
they reach that point where he can produce chocolate in a more efficient
economy-of-scale, they'll go islandwide and export, to quote Averell French,
quote: “The short-term vision is basically to introduce the product to people,
to note the response, develop our product further and reach out to different
markets. At the moment, we are looking to get the product in more Jamaican
shops”
Businessman
Claude Clarke owned HighGate chocolate is his gold standard, as the Founder of
Mount Pleasant Chocolatiers Averell French aims to emulate this household name
Chocolate maker that went bust in 2007. HighGate was named after a St. Mary
Town, much as Mount Pleasant was named after a very tall Hill in St. Thomas
that my company, CLARO Jamaica, used to have a 3G Cell Site installed, the main
connection I have to this story.
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