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Madagascar: a school to train chocolate artisans in Antananarivo

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Training 80 chocolate artisans per year is the ambition of the Edenia chocolate school, located in Antananarivo.

© Laetitia Bezain/RFI

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2 mins

Transform and enhance Malagasy cocoa on site.

This is the challenge that the Edenia chocolate school in Antananarivo has set itself.

Known for its tangy and fruity aromatic notes, cocoa from the Big Island, labeled "fine cocoa" is renowned throughout the world.

Although a large part of the 14,000 tons produced per year are exported, particularly to Europe, the objective is also to create an artisanal chocolate industry in Madagascar. 

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With our correspondent in Antananarivo

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In the district of Nanisana, the first school of chocolate making in the country, whose training is recognized by the State, celebrates its two years.

During this holiday season, the chocolate factory is running at full speed.

In the courtyard of Edenia chocolate factory, employees are busy shelling cocoa beans. 

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Achille Rajerison is the founder of the chocolate school 

There, we roast over a wood fire.

The equipment is expensive to make chocolate, but we can still adapt and with this technique, it is still the best, from the point of view of the result.

In the laboratory, Tafita and Patricia, chocolatiers and trainers tackle the crucial stage of chocolate tempering. 

We are going to make bells for Christmas.

If it's too hot, the chocolate will whiten and if it's too cold, it will be difficult to unmold, explains Tafita.

That's what we call chocolate couverture.

We temper the chocolate and when the chocolate is ready, we can make bars like you see here and we can also prepare chocolate candies, says Patricia.

Baobab fruit, pink berry or kaffir lime combine with the aromas of Criollo and Trinitario beans. 

We have manufacturers who are known, that's already good, but we also have to show that we have craftsmen now, that these young people who are motivated have their own value and that is the ambition of this school.

Even if it is traditional, that the added value of this cocoa sector now remains in Madagascar, that it gives jobs as you see there and that everywhere we go in Madagascar, there will be chocolate makers, continues Achille Rajerison

In two years, the school has trained a hundred Malagasy chocolatiers.

It now aims to train 80 each year.

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