I’m on a Boat!
We just ordered our first container of beans, which is both really exciting and a little scary. A full container is 12.5 metric tons which is still a little too big for us so we’ll be sharing some of the beans with our fellow chocolate makers at Woodblock Chocolate and Bar Au Chocolat.
To actually make the container happen, we’ve been working with our good friend, Bertil Åkesson, to get them from the SOMIA farm in Madagascar. We’ve always loved the flavor of Madagascar cacao and after Alice and I visited the farm last year, we knew we wanted to get a lot more of it and get it as direct as possible. We had to figure out a bunch of things in short order, fortunately Alice made quick work of ISF forms, customs brokers, shipping, warehousing, and marine cargo insurance. Everything looks like it’s on track and the container was loaded onto the Kiara at Antsiranana, MG on last week. The Kiara makes a loop around Madagascar so once the container reaches Port Louis, it’ll transfer to another ship before continuing its journey towards the Port of Oakland:
It should take about 2 months for the whole trip and we’ll be sure to post any updates.
Idea for a bumper sticker:
“Friends don’t let friends
eat Hershey’s old kisses”
[...] Our container is finally in the country! It’s on board the MSC Francesca, which is currently in LA, so it has one more short journey before it arrives in Oakland. We just heard from our customs agent that the beans have been cleared by the FDA, but they still need to be inspected by customs because we’re a new importer (gotta make sure we didn’t slip any guns in with our beans). Assuming smooth sailing (har har), we could have access to the beans in just a week or two. Posted on May 10th, 2012 by Cam | 0 Comments bean sourcing, process « Construction update – Week 2 [...]
[...] were pretty nervous when we ordered our first container of beans (from Madagascar). Fortunately, the beans arrived safely and we’ve been loving them. The [...]
[...] were pretty nervous when we ordered our first container of beans (from Madagascar). Fortunately, the beans arrived safely and we’ve been loving them. The [...]