Chocolate pioneer
Almost a year to the day after the untimely death of Mott Green – the American businessman and chocolatier who founded the Grenada Chocolate Company – members and friends of The Academy of Chocolate met at London’s Mayfair Hotel to remember his achievements.
Chantal Coady, founder and director of Rococo Chocolates, and James Booth, Rococo’s chairman, talked with great fondness about Mott, who become a close friend, and who arguably started a revolution in the industry that has been gaining momentum ever since.
Mott founded the Grenada Chocolate Company in 1999, and dedicated his life to creating premium chocolate in Grenada using organic cocoa beans produced by local farmers. Working closely with the local people, his primary aim was to ensure that everyone involved in the business was paid fairly and that the quality of the chocolate and the process used to make it became sustainable. It is only since Mott’s death that the Grenada Chocolate Company has started to break into profit.
During the evening, Kathy Shaw-Urlich unveiled a stained glass window she had been commissioned to make in Mott’s honour.
The long-term aim of those running the business now is to increase production in order to guarantee its future and therefore the future of the local farmers.
