Hawaii cacao growers recognized at Salon du Chocolat in Paris

The odds of chocolate beans grown in Hawaii winning international acclaim were as unlikely as the first Jamaican bobsled team having a good run in the 1988 Winter Olympics.

But two Hawaii teams — a fledgling husband-wife enterprise in Waialua, and a University of Hawaii research team — did just that at the global Salon du Chocolat in Paris. Biodiversity International hosts the competition every two years — this year from Oct. 18 to Nov. 1 — to recognize the work of farmers and the diversity of cacao flavors. The Hawaii chocolates were among 18 to clinch the event’s International Cocoa Awards.

Putting the tiny town of Waialua in the spotlight was Nine Fine Mynahs Estates, owned by Jeanne Bennett and Bruce Clements. “It was like winning the Super Bowl of chocolate,” said Clements, a retired Hawaiian Airlines pilot.

His wife, a former tugboat and tourist submarine captain, said their winning was a classic underdog story — “sorta like the Jamaican bobsled team going to the Olympics.” And with all their friends in the North Shore community rooting for them, she added, “It was something we could all celebrate, with so much strife and fear in the world today.”

Entries from their farm and UH’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources won two of the top 18 awards in the Cocoa of Excellence Programme, which organizes the Paris competition. A third Hawaii entry, from William Lydgate of Steelgrass Farm of Kauai, was on the shortlist of 50 samples before the final 18 were chosen.

Samples of the top 50 were molded into identical tablets, made of 66 percent cocoa, for judging by chocolate experts. Both Hawaii wins were in the Asia, Pacific and Australia category.

International cacao consultant Dan O’Doherty submitted Hawaii’s entries as a member of a nonprofit national overseeing committee for the Paris event. He also accepted the award in France on behalf of UH, having studied for years under H.C. “Skip” Bittenbender, a CTAHR extension specialist who spearheaded the state’s cacao trials.

Clements said when he and his wife were approached about the contest, they wondered whether it could be a scam.

“We’re just little bitty people out here on a little bitty farm.” Little did they realize it was such a prestigious convention, lavish with Parisian models and Jumbotrons everywhere.

They arrived wearing aloha shirts and lei, said Bennett.

“It was important for people to know where we were from.”

They met small farmers from other parts of the world as well as celebrity chefs, chocolate makers and others eminent in the industry. Few realized Hawaii was part of the U.S., so the couple held small American and Hawaiian flags in publicity shots. Often they heard, “We didn’t even know you could grow chocolate in Hawaii,” Clements said.

UH’s winning chocolate was made from three varieties of cacao grown at experimental stations in Pearl City, Waimanalo and Kualoa. Bittenbender said he started research earnestly in 2004, and in 2016 finished his field evaluation on which selections yielded more across different locations. In 2006 he taught himself to make chocolate in his laboratory by reading the Chocolate Alchemy website, to taste the impact of each location on a variety of beans grown, he said.

“Winning a Cocoa of Excellence award for the quality of the chocolate produced from our efforts to develop high-yield, high-quality cacao varieties for Hawaii is the perfect way to conclude my career,” said Bittenbender, who retires in January.

While the UH cacao program had the benefit of years of research behind it, Bennett and Clements entered the business knowing next to nothing.

Bennett said she and her husband decided to devote their 5-acre plot to cacao, thinking it would be a high-income crop that was less labor-intensive than coffee. Clements imagined it would be easy to “sit around and watch trees grow” while helping to mitigate global warming.

Reality was far more difficult. They started with 610 seedlings from the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center but then had to battle threats to their crop from wind, insects and wild pigs.

After four years their trees climbed 12 feet high. They’ve installed a pond, irrigation system, chicken coop and farmhouse, and are almost finished building their home. Wildlife is flourishing where once only weeds dominated, Bennett said. One of their goals is to care for injured or orphaned birds, hence the name, Nine Fine Mynahs Estate.

She gave kudos to Nat Bletter, co-founder of Kailua-based Madre Chocolate, who she said ferments and manufactures their cocoa beans into a vintage chocolate like a fine winemaker.

O’Doherty said cacao is as yet a minor industry in Hawaii but has the potential to become “economically relevant,” a premium-priced crop like Kona coffee. As a consultant who helps farmers develop their cacao fields, he estimated about 150 small farmers are maintaining tens of thousands of trees on Oahu, Kauai and Maui.

Dole Food Co. was the first to grow cacao 20 years ago in fallow pineapple and sugar fields, O’Doherty said, and was the first to earn an award from the Cacao of Excellence Programme two years ago, the only other Hawaii win since its inception in 2009. Marketed under the Waialua Estates brand, Dole showed that the sensitive cacao crop could be successfully grown and profitable, he said.

O’Doherty objects to the oft-repeated phrase deriding Hawaii as the “North Pole of chocolate” because it implies that it’s too cold for cacao. It’s actually too windy here, he said, but the overarching barrier is the high cost and risk of agriculture in Hawaii.

Hawaii’s performance in Paris was unexpectedly good, O’Doherty said.

“Hawaii as a whole has become world renowned for quality, though we have such a small volume (of cacao trees). That could prove an inspiration and hope for some would-be growers.”

Nine Fine Mynahs Estates bars are sold at Madre Chocolate in Kailua and Chinatown; call 377-6440. The UH chocolate is not sold commercially.