Former gold winner Steven Saveke at his cocoa farm in South Bougainville
Celebration of Bougainville CHOCOLATE Words & Photos: Adriana Schmidt, Autonomous Bougainville Government
Chocolate from Bougainville cocoa on display at a Taste and Tell event in Australia in 2018
W hen you think of perhaps it is the people’s rich culture that springs to mind first, or the idyllic beauty of its beaches and jungles – or maybe even that it grows the biggest betelnuts in the country! But this pearl of the Pacific has another treasure to discover: Bougainville, world-class chocolate! As a leading producer of cocoa grown by a network of about 50,000 cocoa farmers – a third of the total number in PNG and the
highest number of any region in the country – it comes as no surprise that fine-flavoured high-grade Bougainville cocoa is sought after by chocolate-makers around the world. To celebrate and support this flourishing industry, the first Bougainville Chocolate Festival was launched
in 2016, over the years becoming a flagship event of
the Bougainville Government and development partners from PNG, Australia and New Zealand to bring together farmers,
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