NOT since the days when Highgate Foods produced chocolate at its St Mary-based factory has a Jamaican entrepreneur dreamt of taking the world by storm with Jamaican chocolate, but that is exactly what Averell and Hellen French have done for their still-small but growing chocolate production company, ColdBush Organics.

However, if you are wondering why you have never seen a chocolate with the brand ColdBush Organics, that’s because the company markets the confection under the name Mount Pleasant Farms Chocolatiers.

“We lived in the UK for many years,” Averell reflected on the genesis of the family owned company he and his wife operate in St Thomas. Averell met his wife in the UK when she was doing a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) with her dissertation on the impact of trade practices on products like Blue Mountain coffee and cocoa.

“At that time, primarily, I worked as an architect but in Jamaica I had a coffee farm in the Blue Mountains,” Averell said. His family had farmed both cocoa and coffee at Mount Pleasant in the Blue Mountains. Hellen, who hails from Uganda, was also steeped in cocoa and comes from a background in chocolate-making in her east Africa country. Averell, who was working as an architect in the UK, took Hellen with him on trips to Jamaica each year where she was introduced to the country’s cocoa.

“Hellen really loves Jamaican cocoa beans, given that it is one of the best in the world. She started by making small batches of chocolate which she would take to the UK and share with friends and it was a clear hit from the start. They loved it,” Averell continued.

He said after years of making chocolates as a hobby, he and his wife decided to formalise the art into a business.

“And then we came to Jamaica about 2013 and we registered the company.” But he said they were not in it full-time as yet, and were only visiting Jamaica from time to time. It was not until 2014 that the company really kicked off, and since then they have been gradually growing sales.

“We are organic farmers. We like to maintain a balance with nature, and we’re into farming and into health living so we wanted to create something that is healthy and we wanted to do something with Jamaican cocoa beans, given that it’s one of the best beans in the world,” Averell said. At the time he started, Averell said nothing much was being done with Jamaican cocoa beans.

“When we came in and register the company we were more focused on coffee then, even though we also had cocoa. But we said, ‘Let’s do both and see what happens.’ The market response was fantastic because there was not really a dark chocolate bar for those who love the dark chocolate,” Hellen added.

Still, even though the company had just started, it was getting noticed because of the quality of the product.

“Well what happened was pretty interesting. At the time we started out we got a call from Novia [McDonald Whyte] from the Jamaica Observer, and she asked us to present our material,” Averell said. He said someone had given her one of Mount Pleasant Farm’s chocolate products and she liked it and contacted the owners.

“I thought I was going to go and see one person with this product, and I went in to a long table with a line of judges. And at first it was quite an amazing experience but at the end of it we ended up winning one of the best food items in a short space of time, so that was quite something for us.”

Averell said winning that award gave the company some exposure, and while in the past he had to reach out to retailers to carry the product, they were now reaching out to the company wanting to stock it in their stores.

“People were really very supportive because we did say that we’re a small company and we need to acquire equipment — which we gradually did — and and you know, we’re supplying those companies up until today.”

He said the process was slow to build out at the time since he had to depend on personal funds in the early stage because “getting a loan in Jamaica is a minefield”.

But the company was lucky to attract First AngelsJa and applied to the Branson Centre for Entrepreneurship – Caribbean, which they admitted they did to “get connected to the business community in Jamaica”. The company also secured a loan of US$40,000, which added to their initial US$90,000 investment, to get the business going.

“We started very small. We were making just 40 bars [of chocolate] per week but that is because we were more producing for ourselves and a few friends. From that we saw that there was a market for the products.”

Hellen said from there they started satisfying orders until the machines being used were not enough to produce and a new piece of equipment was required to either replace or enhance it.

“I must say our products today are far better than they were when we just started. It was a great product then for people who wanted to enjoy chocolates and be healthy so we grew up with those customers and they are still with us today — that’s the most interesting part. They keep telling you, ‘Oh, we remember when you started,’ so we are growing and we’re getting a lot better.

“We also do exports occasionally,” Hellen continued, but said that is kept small because the company is still setting up the infrastructure and will not rush into not satisfying the market properly.

“We want to send out a product that is perfect,” she pointed out but bemoans shipping costs to get the products overseas.

The company has since attracted funding from VM Investments who took a 5 per cent stake in the business and left itself with room to invest more, if needed.

“Before the investment we had to be careful about orders that come in. If a large order comes in, we would tell the customer that we could not meet it but now we are able to acquire equipment, which allows us to make much bigger orders,” Hellen noted.

The couple, who said they see themselves as farmers who manufacture, said they are taking the company from farm to table.

“An important aspect of what we do is that we take our product from the seedling and the plant directly to the chocolate bar, and we do everything ourselves. And one the advantages of doing that is that you control quality and also you have consistency, and this is [a] guaranteed supply of raw materials.”

“ColdBush Organics is looking to grow outside Jamaica now. We want to put Jamaican chocolate to the world. We have so far been making a lot of strides towards that.”

The couple said they have so far presented the products in New York, London, Germany and Paris, “and all I can say is that our product is appreciated everywhere we go. I mean, well it is true to say that about anything from Jamaica [as it relates to] wherever you take it in the world [as] the quality is always excellent, and I think that we’re proud that we’ve got a product with a Jamaican flag that can go to the UK and win a gold star. Or we can take it to Germany, and even Belgium where people think they’re the world’s greatest chocolatiers, and we can stand shoulder to shoulder with them and their products and have something that is equally good, if not better than theirs.”