exporTT is delighted to announce the departure of six (6) local artisan chocolatiers who will represent Trinidad and Tobago at the DC Chocolate Festival, in Washington DC, USA on April 29th 2023. In its 6th edition, this festival is a celebration of artisan and fine chocolate from the Mid-Atlantic and the globe. The event brings together over 30 chocolate vendors and thousands of chocolate lovers for a day of tasting, talking and learning.
Poised to showcase the best of T&T, chocolatiers will be engaged in conducting networking meetings towards increasing Chocolate exports to Washington. They will also be sourcing buyers as well as gauging pricing trends in the market for selected products and sectors. Representing Trinidad and Tobago at this year’s festival is Montserrat Cocoa Farmers Co-op, Mountain Pride, Trinidad and Tobago Fine Cocoa Company Ltd, Tobago Gold, Ubergreen and Kairi Chocolate as well as two (2) representatives from the Cocoa Research Centre.
Trinidad and Tobago’s participation as a special feature of this year’s DC Chocolate festival comes as a result of a dynamic partnership between the Cocoa Research Centre of UWI and the George Washington University (GWU). The project dubbed ‘Cocoa, Carbon, Community’ in T&T, is funded by the IDB-LAB and will be launched on Friday 28 April at the George Washington University. The overall objective of the project is to attract impact investment into T&T to revitalise the cocoa sector by creating attractive cocoa based business models and a supportive environment for investment. It will provide support to local cocoa businesses to develop business plans, sales pitches (triple bottom line) as well as facilitate match making between local cocoa businesses and impact investors. This project will be executed with the support of exporTT, the Cropper Foundation, InvesTT, and other local cocoa institutions.
As a proud sponsor of the chocolate companies’ participation, in the DC Chocolate Festival 2023, exporTT looks forward to this event and other initiatives under the C3 project that would assist Trinidad and Tobago in creating a sustainable and diversified export sector through the resurgence of the Cocoa export community.