By Elaine Wherry

Cocoa is one of the Solomon Islands’ most important exports. While it’s rarely eaten locally, families grow it alongside crops like coconuts, sweet potatoes, island cabbage, and mangoes. Last year, Todd and I visited the Solomon Islands for a trip orchestrated by Strongim Bisnis (an Australian government development program) with the aim of furthering the Solomon Islands’ economy. Oonagh Browne, founder of The Cacao Ambassador in New Zealand, helped make introductions, host us, and facilitate the exchange. Thank you, Oonagh. 

I think our favorite origin trips are the super early ones, like this, where the relationships are just starting or the cocoa is still transitioning from commodity to fine cocoa. Todd and I met with several cocoa producers and farmers on the Solomon Islands. Among them were Lucy and Agnes, who just spent two weeks with us in San Francisco, immersing themselves in our factory and our chocolate-making process. It was such a great visit. While here, they joined us for an interview: 

Lucy and Agnes, do you remember the first time you ate chocolate made from your cocoa beans? 

Agnes: I usually travel overseas and bring chocolate back home. I never tasted my own chocolate until Oonagh, from Cacao Ambassador in New Zealand, trained us in how to hand-pound our dried beans, and that’s the first time I tasted my own chocolate. We used the hand-pounded chocolate to do chocolate drinks, and I tasted that chocolate drink and ate the hand-pounded one mixing the cocoa beans with just sugar. 

Agnes: 2016 was the first time. I gave my cacao to Oonagh, and when she sent back the sample of the chocolate I was crying. And I was in tears. It was really good. 

What’s one thing you want people to know about your cocoa beans? 

Lucy: For me, I would say that we want to put Solomon Islands on the world map. We want to promote our organic beans. Our cacao grows naturally. We’ve got some very good flavors that chocolate makers can try. 

Agnes: We are here for the farmers, and for the country. We are fighting for this market. It’s really hard. It’s an opportunity for the farmers. If you support us with good prices, you are supporting the community as well. You’re changing the life of the people back in the village. 

We are trying to change the mindset of the Solomon Islands people. With good beans, good-quality beans. 

When did you start growing cacao? How did your businesses evolve? 

Lucy: I’ve been farming cacao since the year 2000. My farm is located in Makira province. 

Agnes: I started out at the age of fifteen, in 2003, helping my mom and dad at the farm.  My parents are both farmers. So they planted a bit of cacao, and then I picked it up from them and continued on the farming. My farm is Tupaghotua Cocoa Plantation, in an area called Guadalcanal. We only started with 3 hectares, and now we have 46 hectares. Then I planted my own blocks, and then with the help of my friends, that’s where, for the first time, I could see my cacao bringing me something. 

Agnes: We now have seven different varieties of cacao. In 2015, I worked for a local businesswoman and registered my business. In 2023, the chocolate house was complete and I started to make and sell chocolate. In 2024, I met these two amazing people, Elaine and Todd. When they come into my chocolate house, when they heard my story, they said, “One day you will come to San Francisco and see our operation.” 

So now I’m here. I’m not here for myself. I’m here for the farmers I work with. I’m here to learn. My mind has never changed, forecasting that one day I would make business out of this farm. I work with 164 farmers. Everybody is trusting me to find a market for our cocoa beans. Many mothers carry the family responsibility, alongside farming. 

Do you farm anything in addition to cacao? 

Lucy: Yes, in the cacao plantation, I also do intercropping. I also grow ngali nuts, mandarin, bananas, and a bit of mango. And breadfruit.  

Agnes: Coffee, and also ngali nut, coconut, bananas. 


Will you tell us about ngali nuts?

Lucy: It’s a tree. It can grow really tall and high, but in the Solomon Islands it’s sort of a cultural tree for us. We use it a lot for our cultural things, like pudding, or a roasted nut, or fresh. Roasted we can mix it with other things, like cassava and cabbage. That tree, we use it a lot during our ceremonial events. I think it only grows in the Solomon Islands and in Papua New Guinea. So it’s rare. 

How much cocoa do you produce? 

Agnes: For me, from my own farm, in two weeks we can produce up to one metric ton of dried beans. I also buy from other smallholder farmers. During a high pick season, we can produce up to eight metric tons in two weeks. It’s huge for us because we need more infrastructure. 

Lucy: In two weeks, we’ll make two to three metric tons. 

Are you fermenting those beans as well?

Agnes: I usually buy just wet beans to control the quality. I’ve got a central processing unit, so all the other farmers sell their wet beans to me, and then I process them into dried cocoa beans. 

Lucy: I ferment my own beans, and for the dry beans we pay for our farmers. Most of the farmers’ beans, we have to grade them before we send them out. 

Whom do you sell to?

Lucy: We normally sell them to the bulk market. Now we are starting to sell the high-quality ones to the high-quality market. I export my beans to UK chocolate makers and I’m starting to sell to France. I have a big, big order from France. When I get back home, I’ll start processing the order. 

Agnes: Bulk to Malaysia. Some of the beans they get they use for cosmetics. That’s one thing that changed my mind. I don’t want my beans to go through the bulk market again, but we don’t have consistent buyers to help us in terms of finance, so we had to go through the bulk market. 

What are you excited about learning during your two weeks with us in S.F.?

Lucy: Coming here to San Francisco, it’s an eye-opening thing to see Dandelion, because the operation is big. Learning how Dandelion do their chocolate gives me a whole new perspective to go back home and do what Dandelion is currently doing, on a smaller scale. Maybe start with a domestic market. I’m excited to go back home and make my own chocolate from my own farm. 

Agnes: Coming here, I learn a lot, for myself and the community. It’s a challenge for a woman to go into new things in Solomon Islands. But coming here has given me an opportunity not only for myself, but also for my cocoa sisters back home. They’re waiting for me. It will be like a big exciting thing for all of us cocoa sisters back in the village. It’s very difficult to find a way. It’s a big opportunity for all of us. 

We don’t have this sort of factory back home, we are really small. And the thing we really want to learn from you is: how to produce a chocolate bar, how to do proper packaging. This factory is so fascinating to me. It does everything up to printing the labels, doing the packing. You do everything. Working as a team — that’s the most important thing I’ve seen. 

Thank you both.