Eric Reid, a cocoa and chocolate entrepreneur from the Dominican Republic and the United States, will be the keynote speaker at the Cocoa Producers Group of SVG’s inaugural meeting this Saturday at Frenches House from 2 p.m.
Reid is CEO and founder of SPAGnVOLA (pronounced as spang—vola), a high quality chocolate manufacturing and distribution company.
He provides technical assistance to a new chocolate making initiative in Nigeria and has also begun to partner with a Caribbean agri-business network with a focus on cocoa.
“Reid will bring his experience to the cocoa growers and will guide our farmers in the chocolate enterprise,” Oscar Allen, interim chair of the Cocoa Producers Group of SVG said.
Remember the government signed an agreement with Armajaro Trading Ltd, which many farmers were annoyed with, valid until 2061. Guaranteeing that all cocoa would only be sold to them. Hog tying the farmers and taking the right of selling to whomever they want away from them.
Armajaro have since 2013 sold their commodity interests including the cocoa trading side to ECOM Agroindustrial Corp Ltd after sustaining losses world wide of $7.5 million.
Remember how I wrote about that many times showing that the best world experts were in Latin America and the Caribbean. With a cocoa association in Trinida and Tobago who we could join who would of offered us advice and help without tying us up for 50 years.
What I described as once again a government sell out of the Vincentian farmers.