Grenada Chocolate Company

Business Overview

The Grenada Chocolate Company was founded in 1999 by Mott Green (born David Friedman), Doug Browne and Edmond Brown who had the idea of creating an Organic Cocoa Farmers’ and Chocolate-Makers’ Cooperative.

This radical new business model created the first “Tree to Bar” chocolate this century, adding all the value to the local economy in the village of Hermitage, St Patricks. Mott Green often said “It takes a whole village to make a bar of our chocolate”; the factory produces high quality organic dark chocolate in Grenada using the world famous Trinitario cocoa beans that grow right on their own doorstep. The chocolate factory is nestled in lush cocoa groves in Grenada’s pristine rainforest.

The internationally award-winning organic dark chocolate has the wonderful complex flavour of Grenada’s fine-flavored organic cocoa beans, processed carefully in small batches. Producing chocolate right where the cocoa grows allows the co-operative to do its own fermenting which gives a real advantage in creating the finest, most complex phenolic profile from the beans. The other important factor is that fresh beans are used to make the chocolate rather than ones that have been shipped half way around the world and might be months or even years old.

The GCC extracts its own cocoa butter from the same cocoa to add to the chocolate recipes, using unique presses designed by Mott and Doug. This gives the chocolate a luxurious extra richness to add to its deep intense fruity flavour.

The co-operative now has over 200 acres of organic cocoa farms which was formed with the objective of ensuring that the farmers would be fairly rewarded for their hard work. The GCC pays 1EC$ (65%) per lb more for the beans than the local price and in many of the farms of the co-operative is also involved in the management of the land as well as the planting, growing and harvesting of the cocoa. The cocoa is grown totally naturally without the use of any chemical pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers and has been Certified Organic by CERES.