CHOCOLAT MADAGASCAR | Single Origin Fine Dark Chocolate | 100% Cacao | 85 g

Product Information

Given the resurgence of cocoa's popularity, more chocolate brands are considering sustainable and ethical best practices. New efforts are under way, such as the Cocoa Accountability Map, Cocoa & Forests Initiative, and the International Accountability Framework . All of these organizations encourage the preservation of lemurs’ forest homes. There’s two variants of vegan chocolate available on the market – passively/accidentally vegan and certified vegan. The first is where companies develop recipes using no animal products. These are often produced in factories that handle animal products (most typically, milk). While the product will be branded ‘vegan’, small print on the rear of the bar usually explains it is produced in a facility that handles non-vegan ingredients. Certified vegan products are those that have been vetted by external auditors to ensure the product uses vegan ingredients and the production process minimises cross-contamination as far as practically possible. I suppose there’s still a small risk of cross-contamination on certified products but I would expect a far smaller chance of this occurring. This was the case when I risked buying a J.D.Gross, 85% dark chocolate labeled as vegan. Minutes after I have eaten the first 2 pieces I felt the horrible allergic symthoms of the presence of milk in it. Until Lalatiana learned how to maximize his cacao production, earning enough to feed his family and consider the environment, he thought of lemurs as rodents—many Malagasy still do. But now he comes out looking for them every night. You can find three types of cocoa beans on the island of Madagascar: Trinitario, Criollo, and Forastero. The cocoa grown in Madagascar is considered 100% fine cocoa, and of all the countries where cocoa is grown, Madagascar is the only one to obtain that distinction. In fact, it is believed that each cocoa tree in Madagascar has its own unique properties that produce a different flavor and aroma of chocolate each time!

We will call our coffee Arabica Elita,' Spiliopoulos says, 'and we will start a branding system, like appellation controlée for wines, for gourmet coffee grown in this district. To be competitive with the great coffees, we have to limit our production and focus on quality. The maximum we will ever produce in this region is 1,200 tons a year.' Malagasy has shown a strong interest and samples have been tested for quality by CIRAD, a certifying body in Montpellier, France. 'They liked it,' Spiliopoulos enthuses, 'and I believe we have a strong chance of being among the best three coffees in the world.' Unlike most Chocolate Factories in the world, our Factory is close to the fine cocoa plantations. We craft and optimise the fermented and dried cocoa into Chocolat in days and not years, ensuring the complex and delicate flavonoids are freshly captured as nature intends. We craft the Chocolate the same way a Winemaker would create the best Wine from grapes nutured in the vineyard close to the Winery. There is no need to add other flavors such as vanilla and more sugar, or chemicals (alkalise), which is a very common solution with the less palatable mainstream bitter cacao commodity​.” Since 1920, these farms produce world-famous aromatic cocoa and today most of the top chefs and chocolate makers around the world use cocoa from this estate. Besides 300 tons of Trinitario cocoa produced every year, a very limited quantity of Criollo beans – 2 tons per year – is harvested separately to make this chocolate. It has a very expressive cocoa aroma with subtle fruity-sweet tartness and pleasant flavour notes that evoke citrus and red berries. AWARDS: On a hillside overlooking Lake Itasy, an hour's drive from the capital, a Greek entrepreneur called Christos Spiliopoulos persuades me that it will. A former manager with TAF, he was born in Madagascar and has spent much of his life there. 'My first objective now is coffee,' he says. 'My aim is to make the best in Madagascar and hopefully the world! It is an obsession.' By next year, the self-taught coffee grower hopes to have 200,000 plants producing first-class arabica - the gourmet's choice, already grown in Madagascar for the domestic market - from his estate in the mountains. There, he shows me various experiments, growing coffee in different habitats - in sunlight, in shade, among soya plants (good for nitrogen), under a ylang-ylang tree - to find out where it thrives. Under a shady pergola, he tends his 60,000 nursery saplings as if they are temperamental orchids.The delicate Criollo was introduced in the early 1800s followed by the Forastero from Sao Tome. Cacao growing then moved to northwest Madagascar, among the forests of the Sambirano river valley, with the benefit of cyclone protection of the Tsaratanana mountains. Suggested use: 25g to 40g of the choc drops per cup (250cl) of milk or water. It is already sweetened (25%) but you can adjust with the desired amount of sugars from Åkesson’s line of sugars. It can also be used for desserts & baking, sauces & spreads. AWARDS: Winners of the Golden Bean for the single origin 100% bar, the fruity fine flavour cacao is selected from the independent cacao farmers of Sambirano – Grand cru de Sambirano and fermented and dried ( single origin), carefully roasted, ground and conched without chemical manipulation (alkalisation) or added flavours, thereby preserving of integrity of flavours and more flavanols, under the direction of Chocolatier Hery Andriamampianina.

Known primarily as an exotic hideaway off the east coast of Africa, and home to unique species of plants and fauna, chameleons and lemurs, Madagascar harbors another secret: its single origin cocoa. The new idea of single-origin chocolate means that all the ingredients in the couverture (the wholesale/bulk cocoa used by chefs, chocolatiers etc) must come from the same country and be processed locally.HB Ingredients, the UK’s largest independent chocolate distributor, started distributing Chocolat Madagascar couverture in 2013. The Madagascan products complement their single-origin couverture range, which also includes chocolate from Colombia and Grenada. Traditional, soil-depleting farming practices for the country’s staple crop of rice are taking their toll on the land and the creatures that live on it. Certain varieties of cacao, on the other hand, are not heat tolerant; fruit and hardwood trees are mixed in with cacao trees to provide shade. This method, called agroforestry, though practiced, is going through a renaissance in a bid to encourage more cacao farming and to improve yields.

Chocolat Madagascar is primarily a B2B company and started working with HB ingredients, based in Lewes, East Sussex in 2013, to help with exports of its couverture and bars to the UK and the rest of Europe. This chocolate has a very expressive cocoa aroma with subtle fruity-sweet tartness and pleasant flavor notes that evoke citrus and red berries. We combined it with the finest and rarest pepper, the Voatsiperifery from Madagascar, whose earthy and woody taste is completed by intense flowery aromas bringing freshness to the palate. awards:However, it is an alert to the company. When you label a product, costumers trust it. If you say it is VEGAN, and the list of ingredients does not mention milk, I trust your product.

A recent article in National Geographic referred to Madagascar as 'a massive island nation' … one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet, but the country has lost 25 % of its tree cover since 2000, primarily to firewood and charcoal production. Deforestation will also exacerbate erosion in the northern part of the country as climate change drives stronger cyclones and increasingly heavy rainfall’. As well as a successful business producing premium chocolate bars, MIA is also one of the companies at the forefront of efforts pushing for change in the cocoa sector, by basically either paying farmers more for their beans - and in MIA’s case bringing a value-added share of a chocolate bar, by keeping production in the origin country. Unfortunately, current labelling rules don’t allow consumers to easily distinguish between single-origin chocolate made in the origin country and single-origin chocolate harvested in one country but made elsewhere, so it’s left to manufacturers, distributors and retailers to explain. Chocolat Madagascar uses the Raise Trade label, a movement seeking to positively identify products manufactured in the country of origin. How can cacao producers benefit?Caramel and butterscotch flavours lead in the tasting, with pronounced lactic notes too. The creamy-caramel-butter notes lead and continue right through into the aftertaste. It's here the flavour is augmented slightly by notes of vanilla and toffee. We work closely to the cocoa producers in Madagascar, to avoid a purely commercial relationship with them. That’s why our beans are produced by the best planting cooperatives and plantation in the upper and lower Sambirano Valley. The higher income raises the standard of living of the farmers. The fine cocoa is then carefully prepared by fermenting and drying. Usually most cocoa is then exported to chocolate factories around the world where the beans are then turned into chocolate. However, in our case, the fresh cocoa stays in Madagascar to be crafted into fine chocolate at the Chocolaterie Robert factory. We want to export value added products, such as high quality cocoa, butter, powder, couverture chocolate, baking chocolate liqueur and bars, which are all made at origin​.