TOM'S REPORT, TRIP TO COTE D'IVOIRE 2023, JUNE 15 Depa, SOCOPLAN, Meet and greet, Tour the warehouse and chocolate factory

 Thursday, June 15

Visiting the Village chief of Pezoan, whom I've known since 2005. He is now 90 years old.

In Pezoan, meeting Servando’s 2-month-old baby girl Eve.

We drove to Depa and piled into the conference room.  

Left is a banner that was done for a conference where SOCOPLAN showed off its chocolate.  It says, “From farm to transformation”.  Our products:  cocoa butter, cashews in chocolate, peanuts in chocolate, chocolate with ginger.” 

We arrived at SOCOPLAN headquarters. The building is in great shape, very clean and organized and best of all our first whiff of roasting cocoa beans! The beans are in very good shape compared to other beans we have seen indicating much better care during and after fermentation.

Then we piled into their air-conditioned conference room where we spent an hour doing introductory remarks.  JP Bolou started by talking about the day’s activities.  And then he showed us the Purchasing Register (Registre d’Achat). 

Then David talked about how he and I met and our first chocolate-making experiment.  

             

We adjourned to walk around the plant and see the equipment.  First we started in the warehouse. 

Table to sort beans

We inspected the beans that were in stock.  These beans had received only a preliminary sort.  I looked at them:  lots of small beans, flat beans, and broken beans.  That means they all need to be given a much better sort.

Next comes the roasting step. 

The roaster looking into the inside.

The roaster from the outside

Next comes the cracking operation.  

The cracking machine.

Below is Peggie’s hand holding beans that have been cracked.  Note the hulls. 

 

The screen that pulls out the uncracked beans that need to be run back through the cracker.

Running the nibs through the winnower. 

The white portion of the winnower traps the hulls. 

The stainless steel drawer at the bottom holds the nibs. 

Below, nibs ready to ground into chocolate liquor. 

The two old melangeurs.  

The Spectra 40, right, which is much older, still works.  

The ABI-50 (on the floor) is no longer usable.

 

Below, two grinders—one a hammer mill (right) and the other the grinder we brought from China. 

The hammer mill produces the superior product.  

David bought the hammer mill from a local Chinese company.

 The cocoa press at work.  

David shows off cocoa butter.  We tasted and smelled it.  It was very mild and subtle.

 

We entered the cool part of the plant.  

Everyone was required to remove their shoes.  In this room, chocolate is tempered, molded, and wrapped.  

Left is the wrapping room and right is the tempering machine.  

In the middle are the cooling shelves.

 

Right, part of the cooling shelves, which are right across from the AC vent.  Pretty clever set-up.

 

After the tour, we split into two groups.  Peggie worked with JP in the office, going through the forms.

 

Peggy says, “Bolou has been keeping extensive records from the beginning. He and the accountant have created a very good system. As we were going through Monty’s forms Bolou showed me what he has. Every single thing is being very carefully tracked and recorded. Bolou said he will share it all. I think Monty and Bolou need to have a conversation because as far as I can tell there is already a very good accounting system in place. Bolou and his receipt book go everywhere together!”

 

I went outside and spent time with Jean-Baptiste Kipre, an old friend and the hero of the first videos we showed at the fundraisers as well as Roger Gnepoh.  We enjoyed some sweet potato fries with one of the marvelous Ivoirian hot sauces (doesn’t come from a bottle).

 

We returned to the conference room and finished with a summation of what we had talked about.  Alexis of TechnoServe was there and he talked about putting together a project that can be sold to interested donors.