The Grenada Cocoa Association (GCA) is trying to unveil a multi-million dollar industry to put more dollars into the hands of farmers.
An official of the organisation told THE NEW TODAY that plans are at an advanced stage to set up a plant to produce Vinegar from Cocoa juice.
Cocoa farmers were given an insight into the plans at their Annual General Meeting (AGM) held last week Thursday.
The official said that the governing board, headed by Pastor Christopher Williams of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, presented samples of the product at the AGM and farmers were given an opportunity to get “a taste, smell or sample” of what is happening in the industry.
“…We didn’t let them go home with (the vinegar). We had 4 small bottles of vinegar and the plan is to have it on the market soon,” he said.
“We want to replace Apple Cider Vinegar with Pure Cocoa Vinegar from Grenada. That’s our aim,” he added.
The official disclosed that the Vinegar plant will most likely be set up at Mt. Horne because “we have a lot of space up there”.
In addition, he said the Board of Directors are looking at its facilities at Diamond in St Mark and Carierre in St. Andrew as the most suitable place to extract the cocoa juice for the making of the Vinegar.
“I am not sure where we will do it but in one year’s time we will be producing a lot of vinegar here. Everywhere we ferment cocoa, we will be catching the juice there and ferment it,” he told THE NEW TODAY.
The official said the GCA has already received inquiries from someone in Britain about the product in the making.
He stated that the association is confident that it has the capacity to provide a competitive brand of Vinegar for the local market.
However, he said that the only drawback is that cocoa is seasonal and they will have to wait for a new cocoa crop in order to extract the juice for manufacturing purposes.
As regards technical support to produce the vinegar, he said: “There is a fellah who is helping us. I understand that the process is not a difficult one. We only have one problem, Vinegar requires sugar and we don’t know what is the right amount of sugar because during the rainy season our cocoa juice will not be so sweet. So that’s a technical difficulty we have to solve. We think that’s minor.”
According to the GCA official, a bright future seems to be ahead for cocoa farmers on the island.
He said the association has 200 tonnes of cocoa on its hand and days ago received an order for the sale of everything from a company in Germany.
He told THE NEW TODAY that the Germans offered US$4000.00 a tonne, which is almost double the current price on the world market.
He said that GCA is looking to lay its hands on any amount of cocoa seeds that it can get from farmers given the going price for Grenada’s premium cocoa.
“Things are going very good. We’re doing pretty well,” he remarked.
Cocoa was once considered as a major foreign exchange earner for the island but has been on the decline in recent years due to disease affecting the crop and ageing farmers.