The High Cost of Certification

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Here is the thesis in English by Lao honors studentBounthavivanh Mixap (aka Vanh) that Clay mentioned foryou to read in its entirety. Vanh has requested thatpeople email her atmiznui <at> yahoo <dot> com if they have any questions about her thesis.

I think Vanh's excellent thesis this brings a reallyimportant light to the issues with fair trade that Clay, Sunita and others have brought up on these forums. In helping with some plantings of cacao in Lao, I am hoping to assist in setting up a more equitable direct trade model, or a model wherepeople in Lao are making their ownchocolate right there where it grows.

-Nat

____________________

Nat Bletter, PhD

Chocolate Flavormeister

Madre Chocolate

http://madrechocolate.com

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

Same thing we're seeing here: going organic is a huge leap into the unknown for farmers in Vietnam. Local farms average < 1 ha of cocoa / farm. The only project in place here has its (huge) bill paid by a foreign aid agency. It's great that they are doing this but once they're done with the project I am somewhat dubious of the farmers' capacity in perpetuating the scheme. At the end of the day certification is by definition a bureaucratic exercise: a/ set norms, b/put in place standards to verify the norms are being upheld, c/ bury any query under a ton of paper... When you're dealing with a family on a farm that is just a couple acres, has a few hundred cocoa trees, some other marketable crops, a pond for raising fish, a pig or two and some chickens running around the vegetable patch, the whole thing seems a bit absurd. On the other hand I like the fact that I know the guys who sell us cocoa by their first name and that when we finish weighing the bags the money goes directly in their pocket.

The High Cost of Certification

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I live in Guatemala, and have a very small company. We make hot chocolate only. ( http://www.junajpu.com/ )
Impossible to get through all the paper work for exporting....much less for organic certification-

hence, we only sell locally. I don't know ANY Cacao farms here that have Organic certification. (Although there may be a co-op or 2 run by ngo's)

As for Fair trade coffee- The farms here that DO have certification meet the standards, sure, but the problem is that they buy a great deal of their export coffee at ridiculously low prices from farms that really are not fair at all.
Whata system.

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

Hi Clay,

I found similar data when I was planning a discussion on Fair Trade/Organic with a group of food students. Reading about FLO showed how little if anything farmers actually end up with once license fees are paid. Your analysis of unFair Trade is spot on. Probably the same is true for most certification programs by ngos-organic, kosher etc.

It certainly would be interesting to come up with a grower friendly alternative.

Michael

The High Cost of Certification

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Hi Sunita,

Thanks for sharing your vision, you're right, interesting things are happening in cocoa as well. To be clear, I'm not against Fair Trade, I think the principles are great, but it lacks a quality focus and a pricing mechanism. With all solution built in the "systems" world, you'll start to loose the human connection, and perhaps that is the biggest problem, when trying to solve social and invironmental issue. A value chain so be a chain of values, broader than only financial value.

I've been organizing tastings in the past and sure, people are more "open" with a piece of chocolate. It seems to affect the brain function!

Best regards and success with the tastings (I really like the name: chocolate garage!)

Rodney Nikkels

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

Hi Rodney,

Many would argue that cacao is lagging behind coffee in many ways... certainly the kinds of specific relationships you are talking about with coffee suppliers/farmers is also happening with cacao. Shawn Askinosie of Askinosie Chocolate is a great example. He works directly with the farmers, profit shares with them and has other associated projects and commitments to farming communities from whom he buys. Taza is also using Direct Trade as are many other artisan makers.

My hope is that in ten years, these kinds of models and others are taking up more space and accounting for the purchasing of more and more cacao. Unfortunately right now, the makers who are doing the right thing for the farmer and the farming communities are barely a drop in the bucket when it comes to overall chocolate production, but the trend is hopefully in the right direction. This is where education comes in and this is where people who understand some of the complexities and difficulties inherent to Fair Trade *must* speak up and explain what Fair Trade does and does not do.

This kind of education is something I am passionate about doing and currently am doing in Silicon Valley. People are ready for it, and those who are adamant about Fair Trade and third party certification (this was me five years ago) will slowly start to see that there are other ways to address the very real problems they are concerned with and that there are many other models that are doing a better job than Fair Trade (IMHO).

Tip for effective chocolate education: People are more receptive to chocolate education when you also feed them (what I call) " Happy Chocolate ". I start with the theoretical and move into the applied in the same session, this keeps people's attention and really has a positive and lasting impact.

The High Cost of Certification

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Sounds like a really cool idea.

From what I've seen bland complacency is all that most people can manage, unfortunately. Yet they are empathetic and in my experience do want to know their products, especially premium products, where they can afford to invest time and choose, and may wish to appear generous or altruistic, are sourced in an ethical, healthier and or sustainable manner.

One thing we are quite keen on is optimising labelling. Fair trade, etc. in its current guise is great for advertising raw materials. Yet for us, none of our products consist of a single certified raw material which either leads to a huge very detailed ingredients list which can be economically unfeasable due to package printing limitations (and unwieldy and failure) or failure to get leverage for a cost.

What we know is that if ingredients are presented well consumers are very interested in local sourcing, and interested in organics and fair trade. This is tempered by quality and price considerations. Local produce is usually cheaper, fair trade more expensive, and organics of variable quality, supply and more expensive.

I've found Jhai Coffee Farmers Cooperative's email address, I'll flick them and email asking a few questions and see if we get a reply on funding sources and their opinion on fair trade etc.

The High Cost of Certification

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Hi Clay,

Having been involved in coffee certification for quite some years (various schemes) and not having found THE solution yet, I was wondering if you could share some of the concept you're developing under the cocoassure domain. In coffee, companies also have developed their own approaches, Starbucks, Nespresso, Intelligentsia coffee etc. Some have blended existing systems (like Fair Trade) with personal believes and arrangements with suppliers (Dean Bean, Uncommon Grounds, George Howell and many others). All off them have developed specific relationships with their suppliers. This relationship building in cocoa seems to be more complicated, perhaps because traders don't want to disclose the exact origin of the cocoa bean? What have you identified as the core elements to make the cocoa market more fair for farmers and their families?

Best regards

Rodney Nikkels

updated by @Rodney Nikkels: 06/15/15 03:51:19

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

IB -

The first link is to a 223 page document. Please let me know which page(s) you refer to in this document. Likewise, the second document is 210 pages long. Please provide the direct references.

I don't think that it is necessarily a good thing that an NGO pays for certification ... even when there is a commitment to cover the cost of certification in perpetuity. This is rarely the case (in my personal experience) as most NGOs project time horizons are very short, often only two years, with the stated goal of improving things to the point where the co-op gets to the point where it can cover those costs on its own. Then the NGO leaves, usually taking the market/buyer with them along with the $$ and technical support necessary to sustain progress. To be truly effective, program support has to last at least a decade and preferably longer - not just "appear" to be ongoing.

What the short term commitment to pay for certification does is create artificial, unsupportable, conditions. At the end of the commitment period the co-op must either be in a position to cover the costs themselves, lose their certification, or go begging for further subsidies.

I can also argue that having NGOs cover the cost of certification is anti-competitive because the certification bodies see no need to lower costs.Creating a culture where the answer is NGO support is not a good solution, IMO.

The High Cost of Certification

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IB -

Please take a look around at my work and writings here and other places and you will know the answer to that question. But - the answer is very clearly that I am working to find alternative solutions to ethical supply chain certification in cocoa that address what I perceive to be the drawbacks in the existing Fairtrade model. I recently registered the domain name www.cocoassure.com in support of my efforts in this regard.

One of the necessary steps I see is to shake people out of bland complacency and acceptance. Most people (if you asked them) will think that "the problem has been solved" and Fairtrade is the solution.

Part of what I am trying to do is to get people to acknowledge is that there is still more work to do in finding ways to approach the issues at hand.

-- Clay

PS. Also, I find it frustrating that you know my name and I don't know yours. It's not listed on your web site that I can find and none of the articles linked to mention your name. Care to share?

The High Cost of Certification

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"I maintain that while 'Fair Trade' as it is currently constituted by FLO/Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance, et al, may A part of AN answer, it is not THE answer." So what you going to do Clay be part of an answer, invent a new answer or not be part of an or the answer?

The High Cost of Certification

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By "simple explanation" I'm referring to the set of calculations you quote and the inherent assumptions. In the public JCFC accounts 2004-2008 there is no mention of certification costs and the simple explanation looks like they have or had grants to cover those costs with no costs to farmers whatsoever. It looks extremely likely, from public documents, that NZ Aid has provided a grant for the organic certification, which appears ongoing and another unspecified US? NGO provides or provided fair trade certification. http://www.adb.org/Documents/Reports/Consultant/40105-LAO/40105-LAO-TACR.pdf initiated by Oxfam Australia.

http://www.die-gdi.de/CMS-Homep age/openwebcms3.nsf/(ynDK_contentByKey)/ANES-7YUGRA/$FILE/Studies%2051.pdf

The High Cost of Certification

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IB -

The problems are not from having been spun off. The challenges are inherent in the Fairtrade model.

You quote one pervasive misunderstanding of the Fairtrade process, "The vast majority of the money goes back to the farmers ... " While it is true that the co-op purchases the coffee from the farmers, paying them the Fairtrade minimum, the premium that gets paid goes to the co-op and is typically used to cover overhead and invest in infrastructure to increase production.

There are far more subtle forces at play here that rarely get looked at or reported. One thing that most people don't understand is that the amount of labor, water, and energy required to produce coffee to the Fairtrade quality standard is significantly greater than that which the farmers are normally used to.

In fact, the labor demands (as reported in the thesis) are so much greater that coffee farmers now spend a significant portion of their income on food, whereas before they would grow it themselves and hunt and fish for it. Apparently, the price of rice has trebled in the last few years. Thus, while there has been a rise in income, an unintended consequence is that now the farmers are dependent on the world food market. Whereas now they might be making more than the per capita income, they are working far harder for it and many find themselves with expenses they never faced before - and are, in actual fact, poorer for it.

There are other trade-offs - while the farming practices may be organic, the associated production practices may not be sustainable because of the increases in water usage and energy. I am sure these figures are not properly accounted for in the the ASEAN figures you link. Another way in which they are an example of poor statistics is that they don't indicate how many farmers are involved from year to year and don't include the number of dependents. So, we don't know anything about how much of the growth in sales is due to an increase in the number of farmers.

These are just a few examples of why the situation is not simple: there are no simple answers, no simple fixes. The blindness is built into the system, which is a lot about forcing western consumer culture values on to farmers in producing countries. Furthermore, the social and economic contract is essentially the same worldwide: it is culturally insensitive and therefore cannot be equitable.

The real issue is that most consumers don't take the time to go an look for themselves in any depth or examine the situation with any critical facility. We want to believe that by spending a few extra bucks at the grocery store that we can make a difference in the lives of farmers. Sometimes it works that way - but many times it does not. Who benefits most from Fairtrade (in coffee)? The companies near the top of the supply chain who, between them account for more than 80% of the increase in value of the commodity once it is exported.

I maintain that while "Fair Trade" as it is currently constituted by FLO/Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance, et al, may A part of AN answer, it is not THE answer. However, the institution of Fairtrade has garnered so much weight and prestige from unthinking adherents that other legitimate attempts to address the very real issues at stake are not given a chance in the market because of the suasion of an informal "moral mafia" that has arisen around Fairtrade and organic certification.

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

IB -

Thank you for asking. I am already in touch with FLO about a far more fundamental issue. One of the supposed "advantages" of Fairtrade is traceability up the supply chain. If that's the case, it should be a simple matter of putting together a report on how much cocoa was purchased, by country, and therefore how much was paid in the way of the social premium.

I asked for this information over a month ago and am still waiting for an answer. True, I was told that they were in the process of preparing their annual report and that took precedence. However, figures like this should be readily available, IMO.

Contrary to your belief, there is no simple explanation. The issues are far more complex than most people ever stop to consider.

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

Accounts http://www.coffeeasean.org/details.asp?Object=19&news_ID=191281139&ID_Con=4

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

Looks like this is in my neck of the woods and organic certification appears to have been paid for by NZ Aid.

http://cafelao.blogspot.com/ the coffee is bought by http://www.obscura.net.au/origin.html . I wonder if problems have stemmed from being spun off from http://jhai.org/successes/ http://www.cnntraveller.com/2009/11/12/laos-how-to-make-a-better-cup-of-coffee/ "The JCFC now involves 550 households in 12 Bolaven villages, and revenues in 2008 stood at $260,000, 10 times more than in 2004. The vast majority of this money goes back to the farmers, who are able to invest in new homes, tractors and education for their children."

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

Clay have you tried directing your question / concerns to FLO-CERT to find if it's them and what's going on? If you can provide a copy of the paper I'll be happy to contact them if your not interested. I expect there is some simple explanation or that there is a problem that needs it's public profile raising.

The High Cost of Certification

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Certainly in my limited experience it's often NGO's / Aid agencies who set up these co-ops and certification systems, but it looks like someone has stuffed up big time. IMO those charges on farmers are probititive to useful outcomes.

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

Dear Clay,

I think you're right, Fair Trade will not adapt itself to the new reality of higher commodity prices, and indeed it is even questionable if the FT minimum price level covers the real cost of production. This level was set in the beginning of the 90s and has not been corrected for inflation f.e. In the coffee sector a interesting approach has emerged, partly caused by a need to compensate farmers for investments in quality improvements. Within cocoa the situation is even more critical, the criollo farms on average produce much less per Ha than the so called hybrids or improved varieties. In order to really protect this genetic resource the market must compensate for the lower output levels. Perhaps for Venezuela this is happening but many farmers with interesting bean varieties on their plots actually receive market rate or a little bit in addition. They than incline to shift to "improved varieties".

In coffee the system implemented is the "Cup of Excellence", whereby per country the best coffees are selected by the industry (internal process). In addition, an international expert panel will rate the samples and the lots will become available for an international auction. The consequence is that this triggers a quality focus from the ground up. The prices paid are upto ten times the world market price. The beans are not treated as a simple commodity but as a crucial material to develop a superior product.

For fine flavour cocoa beans this could be a very, very interesting path. Buyer can compete for specific lots and the one willing to pay the highest price will get it. Does this sound as a fair practice for both sides? I won't solve the bulk cocoa market issues in terms of cost and benefit, but at least it can start a process to valuate cocoa differently. The commodity market make a small cocoa farmer in Ghana compete with one in f.e. Papua New Guinea, which in my opinion will never result in a fair price level, but into a race to the bottom.

Actually in coffee Fair Trade has not done much to improve quality, although the fat premiums were partly invested in small infrastructure to improve product quality (the same actually has happened in cocoa small holder coops in Peru, they have been able to develop themselves into a new origin of interetsing cocoa beans, partly because of the gains from their participation in the Fair Trade market. An interesting example of this is Cepicafe, a coffee organisation that started to develop the cocoa sector in Piura some years back.

In former days Fair Trade certification was free for producers, the costs were covered by fees higher up the chain. Some six years ago this system was changed because of pressure from outside, that wanted FT to comply with ISO 65 criteria (standard for certifying bodies). This introduced additional costs for external validation for certification holders.

Best regards

Rodney Nikkels

The High Cost of Certification

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Hi Gordon,

it was a quick, let say irrational question. As chocolatiers/chocolate maker we all try to change a bit this situation with the farmers kept poor and the others making the big bucks.

My understanding is that if high fees payment are requested from the farmer, most of them will not be able to benefit from the organic/fairtrade market that is growing around the world.

So, who set those certification prices? does have something to do that (maybe) BIG corp. don't want the farmer to uplift their life standard to keep buying power-low cost/high profit system?

We have started an action plan (in our little) that i will be able to talk about when the first lines are finally drawn.

But thanks to bring such hidden issue up, so that we are all aware on what happen around the cocoa tree.

Ps: Although i try to write in english as best i can, when i get upset my italian grammar kicks in...So if it sounds a bit confusing, with some mistakes you know why...

Ciao!

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

Rodney:

You are right - one of the most-cited benefits of the Fairtrade system is the pricing floor. That was really helpful when commodity prices were below that level. Now that prices are far above the floor, that argument is not as valid as it does not currently apply.

It should be pointed out that, in most instances, the $750,-/MT differential still did not cover actual production costs, especially if you're looking to promote environmentally responsible, sustainable, methods.

I agree with you that different models of pricing need to be developed but I don't think that this can be done within the existing Fairtrade system as they would have to publicly acknowledge the flaws in the system to date which I have doubts can be sustained politically.

The only long term fix for the inequities inherent in the Fairtrade model are to implement a system that has, as one of its primary focuses, improving quality all the way around. This may be a part of the Fairtrade system for coffee, but it is not a part of the system for cocoa. To avoid dependence on world market pricing you have to get out of the trap of producing commodity product and move to specialty product.

Fairtrade (i.e., FLO Fairtrade, not "'Fair' Trade" - there is a very important difference) is A part of AN answer. It is not THE answer. One of the profound ironies of the Fairtrade system is that there are tens of thousands of people around the world who owe their own livelihoods to the system being broken and seeing Fairtrade as a fix. They don't want to "fix" Fairtrade because it might mean losing their jobs. It's kind of perverse, actually. Their jobs depend on perpetuating, to some extent, the existing inequitable system (making the "best of a bad situation").

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

IB:

The Fairtrade certifications in Laos are likely handled by FLO-CERT ( www.flo-cert.net ). According to their web site, "FLO-CERT GmbH is an independent International Certification company offering Fairtrade Certification services to clients in more than 70 countries." They may be independent but they are located at the same address as FLO. (GmbH stands for "Gesellschaft mit beschrnkter Haftung" which is similar to an LLC (limited liability company) here in the US - they are not a non-profit company.)

There is a list of fees FLO-CERT charges to producers in PDF documents linked to from this page. There is a Scope of Certification page , but it is missing a link to the scope for cocoa. It should be noted that Transfair USA (the FLO licensee that handles Fairtrade business in the the Americas) is far less transparent when it comes to making it's fee structure available to the general public.

When it comes to organic certification, the are many different organizations that offer the service. Organic certification is something of a racket in that not all countries recognize all certifications equally. In the US, companies really want the USDA organic certification so they can use the USDA organic symbol on their packaging. If you have a different certifier, you cannot use the USDA logoeven though some other organic certifier certifies your product as being organic. You have to pay separately for USDA organic certification.

This can have some serious unintended consequences on producer organizations as I outlined in a post about some implications for the TCGA in Belize about Kraft buying Cadbury and shifting some production from Italy to Canada, requiring a shift in organic certifiers. The new organic certifier had much stricter standards for handling "transitional" cocoa and the TCGA lost their buyer for cocoa from farms in the process of attaining their organic certification.

You ask a very interesting question about who is picking up the costs of certification. In a small number of cases, someone other than the co-op is paying for the certifications. Even then, often the companies are picking up the costs in the short run with the intent of turning over responsibility for picking up the ongoing fees ASAP. (This is common with NGOs who tend to have very short time spans - two years is typical - for their programs.)In the case of the thesis cited, the members of the co-op in Laos are picking up all the costs of certification.

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

Dear Clay,

I think the calculation is quite correct. It is even worse when multi certifications are involved. During the times of low commodity prices as we have seen during the period 1998-2008 Fair Trade purchasing conditions offered farmers a guaranteed minimum price of USD 1750,- /MT of beans and a fixed premium for organic. So, when markets were at USD 1000,- an additional 750,- was received by the coops. The last 3 years commodity prices (in coffee and cocoa) went up to far above the Fair Trade minimum price, so the benefit is the "premium",, which is small as can be seen in your example. So the "fairness" is designed around the minimum price and social and environmental premiums. But when markets go up, the price effect evaporates. In my opinion the minimum price has beenimportant for many small holder coops to remain in business, but with the current markets the premiums should be adapted and the costs of external verification and internal control be reduced to the max.

I hope this clarifies a bit about the background of the Fair Trade principles.

Best regards

Rodney Nikkels

The High Cost of Certification

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Who is providing the organic and fair trade certifications? Are the actual costs cited being picked up by the co-op directly or is it being picked up by some NGO?

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

Also from this thesis:

In addition, organic and Fairtrade certifiers also need to examine how to make certification more affordable and more culturally appropriate to small producer organisations [emphasis added], as well as to non co-op members

The High Cost of Certification

Posted in: Opinion

Antonino:

I am not sure what you mean by your response. The first part I get (and I don't really know the answer to it) ... the other two parts I don't know what you're saying.

:: Clay

The High Cost of Certification

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why such high costs? lobbying did arrive to the farming? we have a plan....

The High Cost of Certification

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I was sent an interesting thesis analyzing Fairtrade (i.e., FLO) in coffee in Laos.

The chapter titled Economic Sustainability contains the following information:

In addition to the overload of work the farmers must invest to gain 34 cents per pound extra, they also have to pay the Fairtrade Certification fee of US$3,460 per co-op (Euro2,378) per year and the administration fee and other fees of around US$5,000 per co-op which is not paid for by buyers (Wilson, 2006; Fridell, 2007B). Moreover, to gain the 15 cents per pound extra for organic coffee, they have to pay the Organic Certification fee of US$3,000 plus other administration fees of US$6,000. There are only 500 farmers in the co-op (JCFC, 2008), hence, it costs each farmer about US$35 to keep the certifications up to date.

This indicates that regardless of the higher gross incomes that result from higher Fairtrade prices, there is no guarantee of a positive net household income for these farmers who are charged the high costs of foreign inspectors and certification.

If these figures are correct, it costs this co-op (JCFC) over US$17,000/year to maintain both Fairtrade and organic certification. At a combined premium of US$0.20/lb it means the co-op must sell about 42 tons of coffee just to recoup the cost of certification out of the premiums paid.

The thesis also reports that the per-capita annual income in the region is US$580. This means that co-op members spend the equivalent of about 7% of their annual income to pay for certification. Many farmers report that they won't join, or have dropped out of, the co-op because the amount of work involved to meet Fairtrade standards for quality is not worth the extra effort involved.

Can anyone tell me how this is "Fair" trade?

updated by @Clay Gordon: 04/13/15 21:39:53

ACMC Tabletop Chocolate Tempering Machine Digital Temperature Readout 6 lb capacity

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Thanks cheebs, you are probably right, and living in South Africa it should probably be even longer before it becomes a problem

ACMC Tabletop Chocolate Tempering Machine Digital Temperature Readout 6 lb capacity

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

I think the bulb thing is a non-issue. There are industrial applications that will require incandescent bulbs for years to come. Also, other countries will be very slow to follow suit. We have a 10-15 year window at least before they start becoming scarce.

ACMC Tabletop Chocolate Tempering Machine Digital Temperature Readout 6 lb capacity

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Thaks cheebs, maybe I'll wait a little as I said to Richard. I am scared about the bulb issue.

ACMC Tabletop Chocolate Tempering Machine Digital Temperature Readout 6 lb capacity

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Thanks Richard, I think I will start out with a warming kettle. I see you can get quite large ones for much less. Maybe I will stick to the old bain marie method for not.

ACMC Tabletop Chocolate Tempering Machine Digital Temperature Readout 6 lb capacity

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Great starter machine, we outgrew it in about a year and now we use it for keeping tempered white chocolate. Certainly served its purpose to get us off the ground. Now we use 80-lb Hilliard's machines for dark & milk.

ACMC Tabletop Chocolate Tempering Machine Digital Temperature Readout 6 lb capacity

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Good little machine for home use and does a good job tempering. Small table top size. If you are an at home chocolatier ok but if you are serious then find a better machine and larger capacity.Most chefs just use a good warming kettle and temper by hand by seeding the chocolate and mixing.I never thought about that light bulb heater thing, that could be an issue in a few years when they are all gone. Hilliards run on bulbs also. Hmmm.

ACMC Tabletop Chocolate Tempering Machine Digital Temperature Readout 6 lb capacity

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Thanks Ruth. So, maybe it is not such a good idea. I will have to look at my finances once again.

ACMC Tabletop Chocolate Tempering Machine Digital Temperature Readout 6 lb capacity

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

It is an ok temperer. The bowl rotates with a divider in the middle to keep the lump chocolate from the melted. It doesn't hold very much but maintains the temp well. A bit bulky. One thing to consider--the heat source is light bulbs and they are being discontinued in the next few years.

ACMC Tabletop Chocolate Tempering Machine Digital Temperature Readout 6 lb capacity

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Hi, I'm very new to this chocolate making (apart from a little "playing with it as a hobby) Can anyone tell me more about the ACMC Tabletop Chocolate Tempering Machine Digital Temperature Readout 6 lb capacity. Is it a good one, does it have an agitator or do you have to stir it yourself. Money is very tight and this price is closer to what I can afford as many others I have look at.

Thanks

Magriet

updated by @Magrietha Hendrika du Plessis: 04/11/25 09:27:36

Ball Mill refiners vs Roller Refiners

Posted in: Chocolate Education

all i have to say is that i've learned that the physical process can't be separated from the flavor development process. it is all happening at the same time - i have a Mazzetti Ball mill and a L and D universal....

Ball Mill refiners vs Roller Refiners

Posted in: Chocolate Education

You'll find that your raw materials will affect your finished rheology a great deal - consistency is key. How you treat your chocolate post particle size reduction will also be very, very important if controlling rheology is important to you as well. Order of addition of ingredients is important. Don't forget the environment can be very influential.

Ball Mill refiners vs Roller Refiners

Posted in: Chocolate Education

I think i will find a lab roller refiner as well as the ball mill, this way chefs can chcolaiers can come and use same recipe with both, and we will learn the difference. I see some used lab equipment at reasonable prices are available. The big issue I see with a lot of chefs with local startups is that the rheaology and viscosity often limit the chocolates use in Fine pastry and confection work. THis I need to solve and understand better if various production techniques combined with fat content, fat binding to particles, etc is effecting flow and ease of use for professionals, albeit fine eating chocolate from these producers.

Ball Mill refiners vs Roller Refiners

Posted in: Chocolate Education

I think, in the realm of information that is likely to be publicly shared with you or freely available, what you find is going to be heavily influenced by the type of mfr you speak to (ie the refiner guys will tell you that their product is the best, ball milling guys the same). It will be heavily influenced by tradition and unproven beliefs (you will find folks in every camp that believe their way is the best simply because that's what they've always done, or that's what their predecessor or admired teacher told them - chefs are notorious for this). You yourself are already predisposed towards roll refiners; however in the above text you're only comparing it to one other production method (i can think of at least 8 particle size reduction technologies that are used commonly), and chances are very high that at least some of the chocolates you've consumed, you have no idea what process was used to convert it. Additionally, you will find that those who have spent the time and resources to do a scientific study to determine and quantify the differences in the various production methods will guard their results closely, as there are distinct competitive advantages that can be leveraged if one understands the options at a detailed level.

I will tell you that it is quite possible to make very similar (read: indistinguishable via the consumer) chocolate via multiple production methods (for example, i can make a dark chocolate on a refiner as well as another type (or types) of production kit that you will not be able to distinguish from one another. There are also chocolates that require a very specific type of kit to make, and that you simply can not make via another method. It is very dependent upon the type of chocolate you are making, and the specifics of that chocolate's physical and sensory components become very important. There is no single answer to the question you seek.

Generally speaking, each approach will have thematic pros and cons associated with it. Some are more heavily weighted towards product (ie how it handles raw materials and converts to finished product) while others are more heavily weighted towards throughput and energy utilization. Chocolate processing has far more science behind it than most admit to, as quite frankly most don't understand it, and the industry abounds with myth and misperception. Many companies continue to do things 'because that's the way it's always worked' and have, over time, created hypothesis as to why something does or doesn't work - but by and large, those theories haven't really been tested or challenged in a valid fashion. There are exceptions, of course, and those exceptions will, for the most part, be treated as trade secrets due to the advantage the understanding offers.

Ball Mill refiners vs Roller Refiners

Posted in: Chocolate Education

Richard:

We really are talking apples, oranges, and kumquats here. I think the first question is what market you intend to address?

IMO, there aren't a lot of people looking to set up production facilities in par with the scale of TCHO. Their Universal is a 3MT machine and is fronted by a ball mill. Theoretically, they could be producing 15-20MT/week in their plant - from liquor as they have no roaster and, on the pier, they are not likely to.

The real growth in the market (as I see it) is how to help companies that are in their real startup phase (i.e., producing in 5Kg batches) or in small production (e.g., producing 40-50kg batches) move up to the next level of production and to do so cost effectively. Going the Mast Brothers route (without the Selmi) a used convection oven, Crankandstein, CPS (or similar) winnower, and a 65L CocoaTown costs about $10k.

What's the next step? Spending over $70K for the basic (15Kg) BLT setup is too big a jump for most startups. It's not enough increase in production to justify the price differential. The cost structure goes up but the throughput to pay for the increased costs does not go up at the same rate.

The 50Kg Netzsch ChocoEasy is about $95K right now (about 60K Euros). That number is low, because you still need the support equipment (roaster, cracker, winnower, grinder) to support it.

If I was looking to spend roughly 110K Euros on new equipment there are solutions which offer up to 400Kg/day throughput (not including tempering/molding) for that amount of money. The throughput increase is great enough to justify the cost difference.

It's also really, really, really important to note that once you get above a certain production size, what really matters is materials handling. Everything can be moved around by hand when you're doing up to a couple of hundred kilos a day, but above that you really do need to consider where you're going to be storing beans (receiving/cleaning, storage, staging before and after roasting), where you're going to be storing chaff and nib, how you're moving/pumping (and storing) liquor and finished chocolate. The issues associated with materials handling are critical when considering growth above a certain size.

Where's the tipping point? I don't know - it depends on how much experience you have. I visited Pralus's factory in 2009 and they still move everything around by hand. They have 3, 250Kg Universals (two dark, one dedicated to milk). There's a 35kg ball roaster and a cracker/winnower. I did not see where they store/age their chocolate after it comes out of the Universal and before it gets molded or what they store it in. But Pralus did not start out at this production level, he's grown into it over many years. If he started from scratch today, with little experience is that how he'd set it up? Probably not.

With respect to your question about conching. It's really about three things: final particle size reduction, breaking up agglomerates and covering all the powder particles with fat, and flavor development. The "beauty" of the Netzsch approach is that it decouples the physical processes from the flavor development processes. You run it through the ball mill until you get the particle size you want and then stop pumping the chocolate through the ball mill and only beat it and aerate it to evaporate out aromatics you don't want.

You could do the physical processes another way (e.g., a grinder into a roll refiner then into a universal for a short while) and then use a device like the Duyvis-Wiener taste changer for final flavor development. (You could also blow a lot of air through the universal using both push and pull fans.)

What's important to know - and this is where having a variety of equipment on hand helps - is that the optimum time required for the the physical processes is not the same as the optimum time required to develop flavor. If it takes 48 hours of continuous grinding to get the texture where you want it you run the risk of driving off a lot of interesting flavors.