GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

T&T’s co­coa in­dus­try en­tered a trans­for­ma­tive new chap­ter yes­ter­day, with the of­fi­cial launch of the Trini­tario Co­coa Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Trade­mark, an ini­tia­tive de­signed to pro­tect, au­then­ti­cate, and el­e­vate one of the coun­try’s most prized agri­cul­tur­al as­sets.

The cer­e­mo­ny marked what of­fi­cials de­scribed as both the cul­mi­na­tion of years of sec­toral de­vel­op­ment and the be­gin­ning of a strate­gic mod­erni­sa­tion thrust aimed at boost­ing glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness.

Speak­ing at the of­fi­cial launch which took place at Mille Fleurs, St Clair yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries Ravi Rati­ram linked the ini­tia­tive to Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy, high­light­ing its align­ment with the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor’s mod­erni­sa­tion agen­da and the Gov­ern­ment’s goal of gen­er­at­ing US$1 bil­lion in for­eign ex­change.

“One of the items iden­ti­fied in that Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy is gen­er­at­ing for­eign ex­change to the tune of $1 bil­lion. This project is def­i­nite­ly go­ing to con­tribute to­wards achiev­ing that promise. It re­flects our strate­gic com­mit­ment to el­e­vate the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor from sub­sis­tence out­put to glob­al­ly recog­nise brand­ed qual­i­ty ex­port prod­ucts root­ed in her­itage, en­abled by in­no­va­tion and pro­tect­ed now by the law,” he ex­plained.

Rati­ram al­so em­pha­sised that Trini­tario co­coa is far more than an agri­cul­tur­al com­mod­i­ty.

It rep­re­sents a her­itage crop that pre­dates the na­tion’s en­er­gy in­dus­try and his­tor­i­cal­ly sus­tained rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, gen­er­at­ed forex, sup­port­ed house­hold in­comes and po­si­tioned T&T as a glob­al stan­dard bear­er for fine flavour co­coa.

To­day, this coun­try stands among the very few na­tions cer­ti­fied for pro­duc­ing 100 per cent fine flavour co­coa, and it is glob­al­ly recog­nised as the birth­place of the Trini­tario va­ri­ety.

How­ev­er, Rati­ram not­ed, rep­u­ta­tion alone is no longer suf­fi­cient in a glob­al mar­ket­place in­creas­ing­ly de­fined by trace­abil­i­ty, au­then­tic­i­ty and ver­i­fied qual­i­ty.

“The de­mand by dis­cern­ing mar­kets for au­then­tic­i­ty and trace­abil­i­ty con­tin­ue to rise,” he said adding, “Buy­ers are no longer sat­is­fied with sub­jec­tive claims alone. They re­quire ev­i­dence-based or ver­i­fi­able cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tems that guar­an­tee va­ri­ety, ge­o­graph­ic ori­gin, qual­i­ty at­trib­ut­es, and in­tegri­ty of sup­ply.”

The new­ly launched trade­mark aims to meet those de­mands by serv­ing as the front-fac­ing sym­bol of a ro­bust cer­ti­fi­ca­tion frame­work root­ed in sci­en­tif­ic trace­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and brand pro­tec­tion.

Rati­ram de­scribed the mark not as a la­bel, but as the “front end” of a qual­i­ty in­fra­struc­ture sys­tem that sends a clear sig­nal to in­vestors, choco­late man­u­fac­tur­ers and in­ter­na­tion­al buy­ers that Trini­tario co­coa is au­then­tic, pro­tect­ed and of pre­mi­um qual­i­ty.

For co­coa farm­ers, the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er tan­gi­ble eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits, in­clud­ing strength­ened bar­gain­ing pow­er, ac­cess to high mar­gin ex­port mar­kets, and po­ten­tial price pre­mi­ums re­flec­tive of the prod­uct’s glob­al val­ue.

Al­so speak­ing at the event, An­gos­tu­ra chair­man Gary Hunt said the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion was more than a bu­reau­crat­ic mark­er, call­ing it “an eco­nom­ic as­set of na­tion­al im­por­tance.”

Hunt linked the an­nounce­ment to the broad­er sto­ry of val­ue ad­di­tion in agripro­cess­ing, high­light­ing the work of An­gos­tu­ra, whose Co­coa Bit­ters trans­late T&T’s agri­cul­tur­al ex­cel­lence in­to pre­mi­um glob­al de­mand.

“When a bar­tender in New York, Lon­don or Tokyo reach­es for An­gos­tu­ra Co­coa Bit­ters, they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Hunt said, not­ing that each pour re­flects the work of lo­cal farm­ers, the rich­ness of the soil, and the lega­cy of Trini­tario co­coa.