Our Chocolate Journey
Our First Love...
CHOCOLATE
The founder, Gerard Dubois, was first a chocolatier in the early years of his career and the love for chocolates just grew. However, due to the increasing demand for pastry and bakery products, his attention was focused on developing products in line with market demand. In the recent years, the demand for cacao in the global market has significantly increased. With the main factory located in the Philippines, La Rose Noire saw this as an opportunity to rekindle the founder’s first love. Coincidentally, there is a local cacao industry flourishing in the south of the Philippines.
Known as the “Cacao Capital of the Philippines”, Davao has the potential to become one of the finest producers of chocolate not only in the Philippines but in the whole world. With Davao’s geographical location, climate and soil profile, it is the perfect place to start the local cacao industry. This prompted researchers to encourage local farmers to further boost the flourishing cacao industry in the Philippines.
As La Rose Noire Inc. strongly believes in giving back to the community, the company has embraced this opportunity to support the local cacao industry to flourish by partnering with Cacao-Trace – a sustainable cacao sourcing program supported by the New Generation Cacao Foundation with the goal of improving the lives and practices of local farmers.
CHOCOLATE JOURNEY
“Once we fall in love, we never really stop loving something that truly ignites the fire in our senses.”
Bringing his first love back as a chocolatier, the founder and well-known boulanger and patissier Gerard Dubois, has traveled all the way to the South Philippines to pursue his childhood passion for Chocolate!
Chocolate has been one of the favorites and most loved in the world of pastries. However, producing chocolate is no easy task – from growing the cacao seeds to molding them into couverture. In order to produce high-quality chocolates, one needs high-quality cacao seeds. Farmers undergo the grueling task of taking good care of cacao seedlings in terms of survival for the first few years. Too much of anything is not good. This is also true for cacao seedlings. Too much shade or too much sunlight inhibits the ability of the seedling to grow and produce cacao pods (fruits).
But it does not stop there! Once harvested, the beans undergo the extensive process of fermentation, drying, roasting, winnowing, conching – which are essential for the development of flavor, aroma and texture.
Being able to produce quality couverture requires a great deal of hard work – research, trials, and collaboration with experts. Not only does the unique geographical location, rich quality of soil and climate, contribute to the quality of cocoa but also how it is being processed. Both aspects have to be met in order to produce a good quality couverture.
With innovative hearts driven by the passion to make a childhood dream into a reality, the team never gave up. And finally, after years of intensive collaboration with experts and farmers, the hard work has finally paid off.
La Rose Noire Inc. now has its very own single origin couverture Davao.