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Cocoa

Craftsmanship, quality, value, respect for the cocoa farmers, protecting the cocoa farming forest and not tolerating any forced labor or child labor – aren’t these the attributes you want in a supplier? We are here to be your long term partner providing you the best Cocoa product for your chocolate needs. Ethically sourced and adhering to the highest standards for the environment and product quality.

The cocoa trees have 32 square feet of space each, so the tropical rainforest winds can blow around all four sides of the tree and penetrate the branches. This ensures the natural cacao fruit develops and ripens properly and with full flavor. The CMF Ventures Ghana Ltd. relies on dedicated family ownership cocoa farmers to check the trees to see how the cocoa pods are ripening. They tend to each with care knowing what each tree needs to grow a successful fruit for harvesting.

We offer flavor impact and satisfying taste and can tell you where your cocoa came from and who grew it. Our cocoa products are perfect for all your chocolate processing endeavors.

Ghana is internationally known for its cocoa production and trade. As the second-leading world cocoa producer, it has registered an annual minimum cocoa beans output of 700,000 metric tons since 2012. For instance, the 2020/2021 crop season recorded an estimated 1.1 million metric tons in cocoa beans production. The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), the government institution responsible for regulating Ghana cocoa. Ghana has remained a key contributor to the global cocoa sector.

CMF Cocoa Nibs

Made from peeled and crushed 100 % cacao beans. Cacao Nibs are a pure, raw form of chocolate with a rich supply of magnesium and antioxidants. We offer raw or roasted cocoa nibs.

Product – Our 100% Pure Raw Cocoa Nibs – Unsweetened Pure Cocoa Goodness.
Product – Our 100 % Pure Low Temperature Roasted Cocoa Nibs – Unsweetened Pure Cocoa Goodness.
Product Sizes – available in a 5kg., 10 Kg., 15 Kg., 30 Kg., or 60 kg. food and moisture safe bulk bags

Cocoa Nibs maintain the same quality and integrity as the whole cocoa bean, in that they are truly raw and air dried in process.

As a quality focused company, we test samples from all our cacao lots at an accredited laboratory. This testing step accurately checks for the levels of naturally occurring heavy metals present in cacao that includes lead and cadmium. Ensuring we offer our customers a quality and safe cocoa product is our priority.

Ingredients:

100% Pure Cacao Bean (Theobroma Cacao)

Allergy Info:

Packaged in a facility that only processes cocoa beans for cocoa nibs.

Storage Info:

Refrigeration not required. Store in a cool, dark, dry place.

Country of Origin:

Ghana, West Africa

CMF Cocoa Nibs is made for quality chocolate producers, the culinary industry, chefs, confectionery businesses, vegan
chocolate manufactures, and cocoa nib lovers. It would be a pleasure for us to be associated with your company as your
supplier. Get in touch with us.

The cocoa and chocolate industry, along with the governments of The Ivory Coast and Ghana have committed to work
together, through the Cocoa and Forests Initiative, to end deforestation and forest degradation caused by cocoa farming.
The Ivory Coast and Ghana controls 81% of the world produced and harvested cocoa.

Multiple initiatives have been developed in a non-exclusive manner by cocoa stakeholders over the last 30 years, creating
a complex landscape of sustainability initiatives.

The Rainforest Alliance is creating a more sustainable world by using social and market forces to protect nature and
improve the lives of farmers and forest communities. To achieve this mission, they partner with diverse allies around the
world to drive positive change across global supply chains and in many of our most critically important natural landscapes.
Embracing this effort supports our smallholder Ghana Cocoa Farmers.

Fairtrade is a simple way to make a difference to the lives of the people who grow and create the things we love. It’s all
about holding and trading fair.

World Cocoa Foundation

With its members representing more than 80% of the cocoa sector, WCF advances public-private action to make the cocoa supply chain more sustainable. They convene the private sector, governments, civil society, and cocoa-growing communities to focus on three goals: increasing farmer income, combating child and forced labor, and ending
deforestation in cocoa.

The UTZ label stands for more sustainable farming and better opportunities for farmers, their families, and our planet. The UTZ certification program enables farmers to use better farming methods, grow better crops, and generate more income.

They learn how to improve working conditions, adapt to climate change, and protect the environment.

International Cocoa Initiative

ICI is a Swiss-based, non-profit foundation that works to ensure a better future for children in cocoa-growing communities. It is a multi-stakeholder partnership advancing the elimination of child labor and forced labor, by uniting the forces of the cocoa and chocolate industry, civil society, farming communities, governments, international organizations and donors.

Cocoa Horizons is an impact driven program focused on cocoa farmers’ prosperity and helping build self-sustaining farming communities that protect nature and children. The Cocoa Horizons Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization supervised by the Swiss Federal Foundation Supervisory Authority.

Cocoa Harvesting

As with many other tropical crops, the cocoa harvest is spread over several months, usually with a major peak and a minor peak of pod ripeness/harvesting.

Careful removal of the pods from the trees with a hook knife is required to avoid damage to the flower cushions.

After inspecting and conducting the necessary tests to ensure compliance with international standards and regulatory requirements, the cocoa beans cleaning process takes place.

The inside of an undamaged cocoa bean is clean in all respects, removal of cocoa fruit material. The cocoa pod is stored properly and is not mixed with contaminated materials not completely removed during cleaning or subsequent steps downstream.

Chocolate flavor is developed in two parts: the first is on the farm through correct fermentation of the wet beans by the grower, and the second by the processor in the factory at the roasting step. Good chocolate flavor cannot be produced by adhering to only one of these stages.

In the initial stages of fermentation, much of the pulp drains away and sometime between 36 and 72 hours the beans are fermented. The processes of flavor development are complex, and still quite poorly understood, though good progress has been made recently through the use of expert analytical and sensory evaluation (flavor profiling) techniques.

After fermentation, the moisture content of the beans needs to be reduced from 55% to 7.5% – an appropriate moisture content for secure storage of cocoa for a couple of months in the tropics. Smallholders lay the wet beans on raised bamboo mats or, on concrete platforms, bamboo platforms to begin the drying step.

The duration of the drying step depends on the weather, but it is unusual for sun-drying in Ghana, West Africa, for example.

Roasting cocoa beans can be described as an individual process. While all manufacturers have a similar goal of making products efficiently, the flavor objectives for cocoa liquors usually differ from company to company and from country to country.

Therefore, the flavor target is a key factor in determining the type and blend of cocoa beans to be processed, whether to roast whole beans or nibs, the type of roasting equipment and the roasting parameters employed.

In a nutshell, there is not a right or wrong roast level nor is there a correct or incorrect way to obtain the target roast level. The correct way to roast and the proper roast level is the process which provides nibs in an efficient and cost-effective manner with the chosen flavor system and yields products meeting consumer needs in a specified market.

Winnowing, cracking, fanning, and hulling are some of the terms and phrases which describe the separation of the shell (hull) and meat of the bean (nib). It is a process where obtaining a clean separation of the two components is driven by economics, product integrity and, in many countries, government regulation.

Nibs grinding has seen many advances in the last half of the 20th century. Before liquor mills, one method of grinding nibs was mixing nibs with granulated sugar and placing the mixture in a mélangeur. This process yielded a material with consistency ranging from a paste to a fluid.

The alkalizing process is optionally applied to modify the flavor and color of chocolate liquors and cocoa powders. It is also known as Dutch processing. The process consists in mixing the selected cocoa material (cocoa cake, nibs or cocoa liquor) with an aqueous solution of a specific alkaline compound and mixing at elevated temperatures and possibly increased pressures.

Common alkaline compounds are potassium carbonate, calcium carbonate and sodium hydroxide. The resulting product color ranges from light red to charcoal black.

Typically, the separation or pressing process begins by pumping hot cocoa liquor (200 degrees Celsius) into a horizontal hydraulic press with operating pressures of up to 550 bars.

The cocoa cake formed from this pressing operation is then broken and milled to specified particle sizes as determined by end use.

Before grinding the pressed cocoa cake can begin, it must go through a series of cooling steps. The hammer mill and disc mill are the common mill being used by the industry and a classifier is usually included as part of the system to improve grinding efficiency.

The term grinding is misleading. The particle size of the finished powder is dependent upon the particle size of the cocoa liquor pressed. Commonly used mills do not reduce the particle size of the cake; instead, they tend to break up agglomerates.

It must also be mentioned that cocoa powder must be tempered. This is a sort of controlled cooling operation during which the powder is held at specified temperatures for predetermined times to allow for the cocoa butter to form into a stable crystal configuration. The powder should then be stored properly if it is to maintain its color and remain soft and in a flowable state.

The other product obtained from pressing cocoa liquor is cocoa butter. This is the most expensive of the major ingredients in a chocolate recipe.

Cocoa butter color can be an excellent indicator of potential problems. For example, shipments that are dark brown rather than golden in color warrant further testing. It can indicate improper handling during processing and storage.

Cocoa liquor, cocoa butter and sugar are the three major ingredients required to produce the various types of chocolate found throughout the world.

Overall, the manufacturing of chocolate is divided into four areas:

Batching, which is the combining of cocoa liquor, sugar or sweeteners, milk powder (if a milk chocolate), cocoa butter and non-volatile flavoring materials as specified by a recipe or formula.

The particle reduction of chocolate ingredients is required to produce the smooth product most consumers expect.

Conching is a complex process that has been, and continues to be studied in great detail in an effort to fully understand changes (particularly in the flavor of chocolate) that occur in chocolate during this process

Standardization is the step where the viscosity of the chocolate is adjusted with the addition of fats, usually cocoa butter, and emulsifiers. Volatile flavoring materials may also be added at this point.

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