Yesterday I took you to Punta Gorda for a look inside Mahogany Chocolate factory, and the processes the company undertakes to make it's 5 varieties of chocolate.
And tonight in part two of our chocolate excursion, we take a look at what it takes to successfully package and distribute the delicate candies both at home and abroad. Here's that story
Mahogany Chocolate's 50,000 bars on their way to the U.S. are just for starters for this company, Executive Chocolate Maker, Armando Choco has his eye on a much wider distribution but he's also aware that those goals require not just meeting standards but meeting quotas.
Armando Choco, Executive Chocolate Maker
"Simultaneously with our client in the U.S. we're also working with other potential importers in the Asian community and in Europe and those are in the pipeline at the moment. We also need gearing up in improving our production processes. For us to get out there we also have to reach put to the distributers, traders, clients, wholesalers in those markets space. It has to do a lot with going out there, marketing, selling our product ensuring that we are there, we can produce this product and basically finding the right market where you are going to sell."
And wherever the chocolate goes it's getting there against some pretty crazy odds. That's because Belize is far from a chocolatier's paradise.
Reporter
"Talk to us about the challenges of producing chocolate in the Belizean heat."
Armando Choco, Executive Chocolate Maker
"There's no additives to it to basically maintain the constant form of the chocolate, you expose the chocolate and within 5 minutes they will melt so those are some of the challenges, the bottlenecks we face."
"It's very challenging, a lot of chocolate colleagues in other parts of the world where it's cold and they don't have it as difficult as we do and that's the reason why we have to rely a lot on air conditioning especially for the critical part in the chocolate making process. Distribution is a major challenge, fortunately for us we have one or two chocolate distribution companies in Belize that are equipped that has necessarily the right transportation means to carry our product. The most challenging part is the retail side. A lot of our stores are not equipped to carry chocolate products, dark chocolate products."
Challenges that we temporary chocolatiers faced firsthand yesterday, culminating in a wrapping competition between myself and Plus TV's Paul Lopez.
We'll let you be the judge of who won.
