Wellington Chocolate Factory is scaling up, using Pacific cocoa beans

Sunday, 5 January 2025

Craft bean to bar chocolate producer Wellington Chocolate Factory is now sourcing its cocoa beans from the Pacific rather than the Americas and West Africa - where the world’s largest supply of chocolate-making beans comes from.

The Eva St business is gearing up to rapidly scale up its operations this year, as part of plans to relocate to a bigger Wellington premise.

Co-founder Gabe Davidson said he had always dreamed of sourcing beans from the Pacific, but due to realities such as the reliability of supply, costs and lack of Fair Trade and Organic certifications that had not been possible until now.

Over the years its beans have come from Samoa, Fiji, Papua, New Guinea and Solomon Islands, but not in the quantities needed to meet its demand. Since 2013, most of its cocoa beans used in Wellington Chocolate Factory chocolate have come from Peru and the Dominican Republic.

It has now begun transitioning to only using Pacific beans, but has some central American beans in use to finish up.

Davidson said there had been a rise in the growing of speciality cacao in the Pacific Islands that suited speciality chocolate over the past decade, which was encouraging to see.

“The industry is growing so we felt now is the time to realise our dream of working with our neighbours almost exclusively, and so that’s where the majority of our beans now come from,” Davidson said.

“Cacao has [long] been sold at commodity prices to Big Chocolate, which is barely enough to make it viable. Whereas craft chocolate makers like ourselves, and other craft chocolate makers in New Zealand, have focused on shining a light on showcasing the different single origins.

“Like coffee and wine, depending on the soil, climate and the varietal, cacao can have so many different interests and flavours so we're happy to pay a premium to showcase those flavours, but also to see the benefits that go back into the community.”

Davidson said Wellington Chocolate paid 80% more to source its beans from Pacific Island nations, compared to farm gate prices in West Africa.

It pays about $5500 per ton for its cacao and has committed to help build the Pacific’s premium cocoa industry.

Davidson said paying a fair price had created a ripple effect benefiting growers and the wider industries. “Other chocolate makers around the world are starting to notice growers in the Pacific, they're getting three or four times what they were previously getting per kilogram, so it really does make a difference, and it helps with giving young people work, instead of going to New Zealand to pick fruit, for example, it makes it more viable to stay on the family farm, which is better for the local communities.

“It's nice to see that extra money being put into R&D, better fermentation, better harvesting and drying techniques, so they can have a better quality product and then command a fair price on the wholesale market.”

Wellington Chocolate Factory will move production out of its central Wellington site, but retain the space for chocolate tours.

Its daily tours showing the process of chocolate making have become a popular attraction, .

The business employs 20 staff, and doesn’t expect to grow that much more and will instead use technology and new machinery to scale up its operations.

At its Eva St location it is at maximum capacity making 6000 bars of chocolate each week. Moving into a new factory will allow the business to make more chocolate and collaborate with more companies. It recently created a chocolate bar for Fat Freddy’s Drop’s new album release.

“We've run out of space where we are. We can't make any more chocolate, so we're looking for a grown-up factory next year,” Davidson said.

“We’ll need a space two to three times bigger than what we have, and a dedicated factory rather than a factory-cafe. We've started collecting some proper equipment, so we can keep up with demand.

“We're excited to take that next step to control all of the many variables with some new equipment,” said Davidson.

“At 6000 bars a week, it limits what we can do. We can’t do export and additional things like that, so with the new premises and the new kit we will be able to have more flexibility.”

Wellington Chocolate Factory recently invested in a new wrapping machine, capable of wrapping 50 bars a minute compared to one every minute and a half manually by a staff member.

Wellington Chocolate Factory was started in 2013 by Davidson and Rochelle Alagar, who had previously ran a craft coffee operation in Melbourne that grew into half a dozen shops and a coffee roasting facility.

“A friend of mine brought back a chocolate bar with just two ingredients from San Francisco, from a bean to bar maker over there, that just had beans from Madagascar and sugar in it, and I didn't believe it didn't have raspberry flavour in there. But when I realised that it was just the natural characteristic of the bean, I was sort of amazed.

“It wasn't a much of a jump to go from coffee - from one bean to another bean - to start Wellington Chocolate Factory. We were the first bean to bar craft chocolate factory in New Zealand and now there are 24.”

Wellington Chocolate Factory product is sold in 200 retail stores, including 130 mainstream supermarkets around the country.

Its revenue has been increasing year-on-year post pandemic.