Local selection and sourcing
Great chocolate taste starts with growing great cocoa beans.
Together with cooperatives in West Africa, we have started training
and education programmes that help cocoa farmers adopt modern
agricultural practices, working to improve crop quality and
quantity.
Farmers learn soil management and crop diversity to grow healthy
cocoa trees – and equally important, 1) proper fermentation after
the harvest, integral in developing the aromatic and taste
precursors of Callebaut’s® great chocolate taste, and 2) drying,
essential in preserving the aroma and flavour of the beans, keeping
them in good condition through shipment and storage.
When cocoa fruit is harvested, it is cracked open to scoop out the pulp with the cocoa beans (actually the seeds of the cocoa fruit). These seeds are heaped up and covered with banana leaves to ferment.
Thus, before and after the harvest, Callebaut ensures the proper steps are taken to develop and preserve the great chocolate taste and aroma that you know.