Tours of Haigh’s Chocolates, native ingredient and chocolate pairing with Warndu native bush foods along with rum and chocolate pairing events are providing opportunities for South Australia’s own chocolate-makers to taste South Pacific cocoa beans.

“We have people here to link into new kinds of markets to be able to do collaborations: Warndu from Clare showed how to pair nine different indigenous foods with the chocolate,” lead organiser Professor Randy Stringer said of the week-long event.

The Adelaide event has been organised through a more than a decade-long relationship between Stringer’s Centre for Global Food and Resources at Adelaide University and South Pacific cocoa farmers, including those in Vanuatu, that has focused on producing higher quality cocoa that attracts more premium prices.

Some of the farmers from the island nation of Vanuatu have never travelled overseas and the events being held this week mean they can taste and be inspired by a range of products made from cocoa beans, Stringer said.

The centre has organised events ranging from “matching chocolate with native Australian ingredients, a chocolate and coffee tasting, a mini-masterclass on how to judge chocolate and pairing rum and chocolate”, he said.

“(The) chocolate and rum pairing is being hosted by two project collaborators visiting Adelaide form the Flavour and Quality Program at the Cocoa Research Centre in Trinidad and Tobago.”

Brash Higgins winemaker and sommelier Brad Hickey is organising a chocolate and wine pairing event with Penny Hospitality while Monastery coffee roasters are taking care of a coffee and chocolate pairing.

Stringer said there are an increasing number of chocolate makers operating in the state, reflecting the growth in other niche, premium sectors like coffee, craft beer, gin and cheese.

Chocolate tasting with Haigh’s. Photo: supplied.

Sandrine Wallez, who manages Alternative Communities Trade in Vanuatu (ACTIV) that works with about 300 cocoa farmers, and also runs Vanuatu chocolate-making company Aelan, is here for the Adelaide events along with several cocoa bean farmers from Vanuatu.

Wallez jointly established ACTIV in 2008 to empower disadvantaged communities in Vanuatu through fair trade, and is passionate about the improving quality of one of her country’s main commodities.

When the cocoa relationship with ACTIV first started more than 10 years ago, Wallez said many cocoa farmers had never even tasted chocolate with no chocolatiers operating in Vanuatu.

“It was hard to talk about the quality when they didn’t even know what the produce was at the end,” Wallez said.

She established Aelan in 2017 “after all the work to produce quality cocoa” inspired the opening of a business that could make chocolate in Vanuatu.

Since then, Haigh’s in Adelaide and Bahen & Co in Margaret River in Western Australia have actively helped her learn about the business of making quality chocolate. Haigh’s has also produced a single-origin Vanuatu chocolate bar through the relationship.

“Our chocolate is a dark variety. Vanuatu doesn’t have any dairy industry so we don’t make milk chocolate,” Wallez said, adding that she had since learned the genetics and flavour varied among beans from different islands in the country.

Josh Bahen from Bahen & Co is also in Adelaide this week to host a mini-masterclass on how to judge and taste chocolate, adding another level to producers’ knowledge.

The class will be backed by the winners being announced in the first regional cocoa competition for the South Pacific organised through the partnership earlier this year.

Stringer said cocoa bean samples have been collected from 13 growers in Australia, Fiji, Samoa, the Solomon Islands and from farmers across Vanuatu’s 13 principal and many smaller islands.

Ten judges, including esteemed chocolate makers from Australia, the Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand and the United States of America, have now ranked the cocoa beans for the announcement on Thursday.

Wallez said she was meeting key food industry leaders to discuss importing Vanuatu cocoa beans for the growing chocolate-making industry in South Australia.

As a reflection of Vanuatu’s developing industry, it had also recently signed a deal to provide cocoa beans for chocolate desserts with global company P&O Cruises.

She believed there were strong opportunities to build new relationships with South Australian companies like Warndu to produce high-end chocolate products together to market globally.