Cocoa faces quality test

Islands

TASTING of chocolate samples produced from sample cocoa beans by six renown international judges will be a major highlight of the inaugural Air Niugini PNG Cocoa Warwagira, which will be held from Thursday to Saturday in Kokopo, East New Britain.
PNG Cocoa board executive manager field services and chairman of the organising committee Dr Arnold Parapi said the six judges are from the United Kingdom, US, Australia and New Zealand.
The show is organised by the Cocoa board and supported by partners in Phama (Pacific horticultural & agricultural market access programme) – an Australian and New Zealand funded programme and the World Bank’s Productive Partnerships in Agriculture (PPAP) programme.
“We are very pleased to be partnering with Phama, they have put a lot of money into this domestic event,” Parapi said.
He said Phama’s role was to help make accessible agricultural produce to markets overseas.
“Our problem in PNG is that we are still primary producers and need to venture into downstream processing and access markets.”
He said Phama was responsible for bringing the six judges to judge the cocoa samples from around the country.
“We have collected beans from all around PNG and had processed into cocoa liquor and chocolate at the laboratory at Tavilo and will be subject to the panel of judges who will tell us which samples are best and we will enter them to represent Papua New Guinea in the next International Cocoa of Excellence Show in Paris, France,” Parapi said.
The show will consist of two events running at the same time.
One is the conference and the other is a trade show at the Warwagira show grounds at Ralum.
Parapi said while the international judges were available, they would also be looking for markets.
“Farmers must come prepared with the quality and volume of cocoa beans because it is possible their group can be connected to the market to make cocoa products by international visitors.”
The event will see hundreds of cocoa farmers from the 14 growing cocoa regions around the country attending with cocoa samples to be tasted.