Forum Activity for @Thomas Forbes

To be clear, there are huge advantages for the growers to cooperate as well, although it also brings another level of challenges. It is not a prerequisite to the OP's question; however demand volume is (well, synchronous demand volume is).

As I was driving back from the mtns today, I was looking for non-confidential examples that would be useful in helping illustrate the idea. Domori, Valhrona, Amedei, etc all are able to secure appropriate quality cocoa and keep their suppliers happy. How do you think that's done? In addition to working closely with them to maximize quality (ie minimize the defect stream), there's a captive volume at a mutually beneficial price. This approach could run into a number of potential issues - ie most chocolate mfrs don't know step 1 about cocoa quality or maximizing it; if they do have something they think is unique, there's likely to be a protectionist approach to guard their secret; there's a tendency to similarly guard your supply chain for fear of someone else 'stealing' your flavor.

Consolidating your purchasing power will require that these hurdles be cleared. A very frank assessment of which is more important will be needed.

Jim:

Perhaps you should also add to the list of criteria for your example .... a co-op that did not accept outside aid. Many of the purported benefits of "fair trade" certifications come about because some external group - some NGO or often USAID (especially in Peru) - covers both the upfront and on-going costs of certification.

When you eliminate outside aid from the equation you'll see that there are very few instances where it has happened from the grower up.

Sebastian brings up a very interesting point, which is that maybe it makes more sense for small chocolate makers to get together into a PURCHASING co-op rather than forcing the growers to organize. By doing so, the purchasing co-op drives larger volume purchases, which can start driving the critical mass of volume necessary to move away from commodity market pricing to specialty market quality, and the higher prices quality can command.

A purchasing co-op could also work to reduce the costs of transportation, one of the key limiters to supporting small specialty growers - there's never a full container.

Lourdes,

What and where is a official premium paid for fine cacau? What is the value of the premium?

I have watched the formation and failure of dozens of farmer associations. The issue remains the basic price paid for cocoa beans. Until chocolate lovers accept the fact that cocoa producers are underpaid for the product.....a group of poor farmers working together do not change. THEY STILL REMAIN A GROUP OF POOR FARMERS. Adding the expense of coop administration to the already overburdened farm economics simply complicates individual budgets. There are success stories from various parts of the industry where small holders have banded together, normally short lived. The only success story that endures is of the big 5 multinationals that control the world market price. I wish it could be changed but it's not likely in the near future.

The cost of producing "premium fine" cocoa is much higher than "bulk beans", as individuals and as coops. If you have an example of a coop that has raised small holders from poverty to "middle class", please let me know and I will personally visit them in order to understand the process.

Best regards

Jim Lucas

Having done this professionally for over 20 years, I have a fair bit of insight into what works and what doesn't, and have learned a thing or two about how systems work (or don't) in almost every origin. I'm familiar with the entire supply chain and the dynamics that are important at each of the steps - and they often are in conflict with one another. I know what motivates breeders, NGO's, farmers, middlemen, exporters, warehousers, the trade, and manufacturers.

I'm trying to say that I understand it better than most.

Hence the reason I stand by my statement that the only way to address what the original poster asked, is either

1) by creating sufficient supply demand as to 'pull' the specific requirements forward while simultaneously generating the volumes to allow product differentiation to provide an outlet for that material which does not meet the highest of standards (because it will always be there). Unfortunately, the small chocolate maker is not sufficiently coordinated to work closely with his/her peers to consolidate their demand, or they're more interested in flavor differentiation, thereby fragmenting the market and subsequently allowing for a continuation of the problem (now you have 100 buyers buying from 100 regions/farmers vs the 100 of them consolidating their purchases into a single farm, clearly identifying the post harvest parameters and handling requirements that will yield their requirements).

2) controlling the supply. buy your own farm and run it. very few can/want to do this. And you still must have product differentiation or accept low yields due to destruction of non-conforming product.

Jim's solution requires a minimum volume threshold to make it viable, both from the farmers perspective as well as logistically. Sure a chocolate producer can buy out a small farms volume, but the costs involved in getting the beans to the use will will result in a $20 chocolate bar. It works, and is the basis behind my #1 above. Prerequisite = volume. Form a purchasing co-op of sufficient volume to fill half containers minimum at a time, and provide a fiscal incentive for quality. Now you've reached critical mass.

as jim says, the only way to have growers interested in growing fine cacao, organic cacao, fermenting and drying, or doing anything other than low quality high volume, is to make it more profitable for them by paying a premium price for beans. and the only way to do that is to have a high end market to sell the higher priced beans into, as beans or as chocolate. so it requires a holistic approach with a strategy for moving the premium priced beans into the fine market at a profitable markup.

what jim says about the discards is very important. if i ask a farmer to sell me only his best beans, what does he do with the rest? the acopiador (middleman) who used to buy all his beans will not accept only his worst beans, or will pay an unattracticely low price. what we do to address this is buy the bad beans dry at the next harvest, at local market price, transport them along with the good beans, and mix them along with our flat and small discards from my post-harvest processing plant, and sell them to an acopiador. that way the farmer is happy andthe acopiador is satisfied. its not profitable for me but its not a loss either and the farmer is happy which is the most imporant thing.

saludos

brian

Sebastian,

Cacau is sold by weight and the producers are striving to maximize this attribute. It makes little economic sense to produce organic beans for 10% premium (standard in Brazil), when the addition of fertilizer increases the quantity produced by 50%.

Your comments regarding "create the demand" has the most interesting impact. Unless buyers are willing to contract for an entire farm production, it is unlikely they will be in a position to dictate production techniques. In all cases, the producer is unable to produce 100% cacau of excellent quality. Disease, production processes and other factors influence quality. Will the buyer accept the "discards"?

The inescapable fact is, flavor is one of the least considered factors in producer earnings. In addition, 10% of cacau beans produced are absorbed by fine chocolate producers, the remainder goes to multinationals. Until high end chocolate producers accept the fact that premium beans are in fact "premium priced" there is a serious "log jam" I do not know a single producer that is interested in selling premium beans at any cost.

A solution for those interested in long term supplies of high quality beans is to invest in the farms and take an active role in its operations. Any takers?

Jim Lucas

There's a disconnect with the breeders, the growers, and the buyers. Breeders are propagating for yield and disease resistance, and it's rare to meet a farmer who has even ever tasted chocolate. Breeders often don't understand that there are multi-dimensional variables that are important - although for some parts of industry, yield may be the most important (ie, if you're simply pressing it into cocoa powder for the powder - a high yield, low fat bean may be very important to you. flavor is less so if you're going to alkalize it anyway and create your own flavor). His experience is likely with Transmar, who - while they shouldn't be purchasing fungally infested beans - are not going to be overly discriminating from a quality standpoint. They're a volume player.

Create the demand or control the supply - it's really the only way it will happen.

Today we had a group of cacao growers from Santo Domingo, Ecuador. The discussion was about how they get paid. Typically growers take their cacao to centers where they sell their cacao. They said that they get paid the same price for Nacional (fine aroma cacao), than they get paid for CCN-51, the clone that is taking over both Peru and Ecuador. It also doesn't matter whether they ferment their beans or not, or if they put monilla(rotten cacao) along with good cacao. What they are looking for is a partner in countries that process the cacao into chocolate and are willing to buy the good cacao for a higher price than CCN-51 or cacao that has not been selected.

As a group, we should find a solution for these farmers, we need to let them know that if they produce excellent cacao, they should get paid a higher price. That way the heirloom varieties can be preserved.

I am looking for a chocolate that will stay non meltable in 70 degrees.

Does anyone know of a chocolate that does not melt so fast.

Thank You

OK, more troubles this week! I have tried to temper Manjari THREE times already without any success. Could it be because it is too hot. I know temperature and humidity can be a problem, but I do not know how much.

The temperature is about 32C outside but inside I think it is about 28-29C. I cannot measure the humidity, but according to the weather bureau it is not high only about 14% so that can not be the problem. I am using the cold bath method as I am running out of seed. I have been able to temper this way with quite a bit of success last week, but now it simply does not want to happen.

Help, please!

Sorry, but one more thing. I sit with chocolate that must have overheated and my battles with the thermometer. It tastes fine and feels smooth in the mouth, but it has very little hard pieces that looks like caramelized milk.

Will it be possible to temper it? I'm even thinking of caramelizing it in the oven as I see a recipe from Valrhona for white chocolate. I was thinking I can them mold it and sell it as some kind of caramelized chocolate, or something. I cannot afford to lose it, so I am trying to think of a way to use it as the taste is still perfect.

Thanks Debra, maybe that is the mistake I am making. I try and temper just enough because of the HUGE amount of untempered chocolate cluttering everywhere, even the bedrooms!

So, I will see what happens if I try 1 kilo at a time. I still have quite a bit of tempering to do for this weekend. Some of the bad results I have heated a little with the hair dryer and sprinkled some grated chocolate on them. At the moment they look fine so I will see what happens during the night.

I am getting desperate here so I really appreciate your help. I feel a little sorry for myself and feel as if there is too much pressure on me to learn tempering while I have to produce for the markets.

OK, so now I still have problems. I am tempering the Valrohna Manjari, Guanaja and Jivara Lactee without any problem. T

he Equatoriale Noire as well as the Lactee I just cannot get in temper no matter what I do. I have been tempering all morning using the tempering guidelines as on the package without any luck. Is there something special about the Equatoriale that makes it more difficult to temper?

I have tried the seed method as well as the cold water method without any success.

Debra thought I will just come back and thank you. I new about the double boiler technique, but I have never had the guts to try it until you prompted me. Thank you so much. On my first attempt my molds came out just fine. Not perfection yet, but definitely usable which is a relieve as I do not have a lot of time. I tempered some milk chocolate even though I knew it is more difficult but I wanted to get them out of the way. Now I can move on to the fun of the dark chocolate.

Thanks again

Magriet.

OK, so I just want to make sure. Even if I start with chocolate that is not in temper I can still use this method? That would really help me a lot because I sit here with LOTS of chocolate that is out of temper because of my failed attempts at tempering. The plain chocolate is getting better but the milk chocolate is still giving me problems.

Thanks so much for your willingness to help. I hope one day I will know enough myself to be able to help others as well.

Thanks Debra, I think it is my nervousness that is making things worse. I am under pressure to "perform!" and no time to really practice.

I do the paper test and it seems fine, my dipped truffles are sort of OK, but the molds not. I think I wish the paper test right when it is not really. It dries OK, but the snap takes a while. I will try and add the lip test. Up to now I have not had the confidence to do it. Not trusting myself that I will be able to tell if it is right.

I'm off to temper another batch for my molds for Saturday. I'll try the lip test as well and I will let you know how it goes. It is a bit difficult to teach yourself with only the internet as your source.

Horrible to try and get a business going on less than a shoe string. Hardly money for the chocolate. This is actually one of my problems. I cannot afford to buy another bag of chocolate to use as seed and now I am probably skimping on the seed!

Thanks again.

Magriet

The shinier the better. Always do the lip test as a second check and also do the paper test. Check the temp with your lip as explained earlier. Even with your broken thermometer you could have succesfully performed the lip test for tempering. Test to see if the chocolate is tempered by putting a swipe on some wax or parchment paper and see if the chocolate sets up within a few minutes. Then make sure the chocolate doesn't appear streaky. Your description of what happened indicates to me that the tempering was incorrect. The temperature was slightly on the high side, but probably not by much.

Can your chocolate be too shiny? I am asking this because I have tempered some chocolate to use in my molds. At the correct temperature, 29C for milk chocolate it became really shiny. When I molded with it I had chocolate bloom within minutes and I had to really tap it to get it to release from the mold after I have left it overnight.

Maybe when I molded it I tapped the molds too much to get rid of air bubbles? I just do not know. I am having two threads now that should probably have been one.

Glad I could help, and no you're not being stupid. One would logically think that if the thermometer works, it's taking the right temperatures. I've also learned something from this exchange: Even though the thermometer works, a low battery can screw with the temperature readings.

So, for that I thank YOU!

Cheers.

Brad

Magrietha;

It sounds to me like your thermometer is innacurate. Your working temperature should be around 31 or 32 degrees.

Check your thermometer's high and low temperatures.

High temperature test: boil some water and take the temperature. Adjust your boling point approximately 1.5 degrees celcius for every thousand feet above sea level. (for example, your boiling point of water at 3,000 feet above sea level will be approximately 95.5 degrees C)

Low temperature test: fill a small bowl with as much ice as possible, then fill the rest of it with water. Stir and insert your thermometer. It should read very close to zero.

You need to test both ends because the way that thermometers work doesn't mean they are accurate at all points along the range they measure.

You will also find that highhumidity will require you to raise the "bottom" temperature of your tempering cycle a degree or so on occasion. Chocolate is very hygroscopic, meaning it very easily absorbs water and odor from its surroundings. Water causes chocolate to get very thick, and will cause you grief if you don't make the necessary adjustments.

No offence to Debra, but I personally wouldn't recommend that you add cocoa butter to your chocolate to thin it. Not only does that dilute the chocolate, dull the flavor, and change the viscosity of the chocolate, but it is a quick band aide fix whichin the longrun adds to your problems (after all it's the cocoa butter in the chocolate which is causingyou the problems in the first place. It doesn't really make sense to pour more gasoline on to that fire!). Understanding how thecocoa butter crystals behave, is the KEY to temperingand working with chocolate.

One other thing: When reheating your chocolate, take it off the heat source when it's a couple of degrees below your target (especially for small batches done in a baine marie). The heat of the pot will carry the temperature up, sometimes as much as 4 degrees, hence if you take the chocolate off your heat source AT your target temperature, within moments it will again be out of temper and you have to start over.

Hope that helps.

Brad.

Here is the Callebaut link for the on line videos

http://www.callebaut.com/caen/333

Go to the BArry Callebaut website.Actually, Callebaut and Cocoa Barry may have their own website. In both websites are training videos which you might find very helpful

http://www.cacao-barry.com/uken/1855

I don't know if this link will work but it is in the Cocoa Barry website. They both have excellent training videos.

I would temprer the chocolate via different method. First, you need to follow the temp chart on the Valrhona bag, the chocolate contains lots of cocoa butter and thus needs to be melted to a higher temp...in the 50's celcius. The technique you should use, I am not sure of how many pounds you are trying to temper, but I would use a marble slab or a bain marie.

With the marble slab, or stainless steel work top, cool the table with ice first to get the surface cold. Dry table well and then pour 2/3 of chocolate on table and cool the chocolate until the chocolate feels cool on your top lip (THE LIP TEST). Pour it into the remaining 1/3 warm chocolate and stir well. Try taking the temp or do the lip test again. You should not feel any warmth on your lip. It should feel slightly cool.

If you don't have a marble slab or hard surface, then use the bain marie. Instead of hot water, you need to use ice and water mixed together and place 2/3 chocolate in the pan and on top of the ice. Cool it down and then pour the remaining 1/3 chocolate into the mixture and stir well.

Humidity can be a problem. Sometimes you need to add cocoa butter to thin the chocolate out if it gets to thick.

I cannot shout HELP!! loud enough. Can my thermometer be wrong? I am waiting for a infra red one, but until I have to use what I have.

I am tempering Valrhona. Whilst seeding I try to let the temperature go down to 28C, but I cannot do it as the thermometer says it is still 31C, but the seed does not want to melt any more and the chocolate is very thick and starting to clump on the sides. What am I doing wrong or is it the thermometer? I have to say the weather is not ideal as it is raining, so humidity is a problem. I try and keep the temperature at 20C, but as it is the same room I have to melt the chocolate with a bain marie causing moisture.

Another question, can the humidity give me trouble with my ganache? It is way to soft even though I follow the recipes to the letter as I have been doing all the time with no problem.

Any help will be appreciated.