Samoa cocoa farmer Mr Saena Tialino Penaia of Melzi Plantation received global recognition at Monday evening’s International Cocoa Awards ceremony held at the Porte de Versailles in Paris, France.

The International Cocoa Awards is a global competition which recognizes the work of cocoa farmers and celebrates cocoa flavours globally. The Programme and Awards aim to increase awareness and opportunities along the cocoa supply chains, facilitate network among cocoa farmers and producers and stimulate and build the capacity of cocoa producing countries to preserve the quality and diversity in cocoa.

To compete, cocoa producers submit samples to the Cocoa of Excellence Programme of which only 50 samples are selected for profiling and further evaluation by chocolatiers and sensory evaluation experts. Mr Penaia’s cocoa sample was one of the 50 high-quality cocoa samples selected from the 162 samples received from 40 cocoa producing countries. This is the second time that Samoa has submitted a sample for the Programme having competed also in the 2015 Programme.

Counsellor Theresa Penn of the Embassy attended the Award Ceremony on behalf of Mr Penaia and the Government of Samoa.

Click here to view the profiles of the Top 50 cocoa samples for 2017.