The first PGI chocolate supply chain is born

An international cooperation project to enhance Geographical Indications promoted by the Modica PGI Chocolate Consortium, the Indonesian association Kakao Berau GI, with the collaboration of CSQA and Qualivita

A meeting was held in Modica to lay the foundations for the first European PGI chocolate supply chain that uses Geographical Indication cocoa as raw material. The protagonists of the ambitious international cooperation project are the Modica PGI Chocolate Consortium and the Indonesian organization Kakao Berau GI association . The initiative is part of the Arise+ Indonesia project, a European trade support program in the framework of EU-Indonesia cooperation.

The certification body CSQA , leader in the sector in Italy with 71 controlled PDO PGIs, and the Qualivita Foundation , which has supported the growth of Modica PGI chocolate over the years with enhancement and innovation projects such as the Digital Passport, will respectively guarantee and enhance the new Geographical Indication supply chain model.

The new project will proceed in planned steps, the first of which aims to verify the methods, and initiate specific actions, to facilitate the registration in Europe of Kakao Berau as the first IGP cocoa in the world .

Once the certification has been obtained, it will be possible to start the creation of the first completely PGI chocolate chain starting from a single raw material capable of guaranteeing both the organoleptic quality and the permanence of significant quantities of active ingredients, capable of making Modica PGI chocolate important from a health point of view. To this end, samples of Indonesian cocoa beans from the Berau district were processed, according to a qualification protocol drawn up by the technicians of the Consortium, and samples of Cioccolato di Modica PGI were made with the bitter paste obtained.

The Consorzio del Cioccolato di Modica PGI and its supply chain thus propose themselves, at an international level, as a vanguard for the start of a collaboration and development cooperation relationship with one of the countries, Indonesia, third among cocoa producers in the world, most active in adopting the European PDO PGI model, the most important system capable of affirming the value of the link between excellent agri-food productions and the territory, origins, traditions.


STATEMENTS

Paolo De Castro , S&D MEP and rapporteur of the GI reform
The registration of the first PGI cocoa could be really important because for the first time we will be able to have a European PGI - Cioccolato di Modica PGI - which uses PGI cocoa as a raw material. It is one of the objectives of the EU Commission and an objective that I am also pursuing as rapporteur of the new regulation on Geographical Indications, as it is able, on the one hand to extend the PDO PGI system outside Europe by creating opportunities for all European products, on the other to extend a principle of connection to the territory, to the origins, to the traditions of extraordinary products of our agri-food sector.

Nino Scivoletto , Director of the Modica Chocolate Consortium
The Modica Chocolate Consortium, having achieved the goal of PGI certification and the significant interest from the consumer which marked the doubling of production from 2019 to 2021, can now look to the past to plan the future. The return to the eighteenth-century chocolate production technique, starting from cocoa beans, is the new bet that can be won to the extent that producers can make use of a raw material, also certified according to EU parameters, obtained following a rigorous qualification protocol. Considering the production methodology, closely anchored to the history and the territory, the Cioccolato di Modica PGI will be able to highlight even more those peculiar qualities that characterize it both for the organoleptic and for the health aspects. Thanks to the Arise+ Indonesia project and the collaboration of CSQA and Qualitività, today we are launching an international cooperation project with Kakao Berau which will bear fruit in the next two years.

Mr Muhammad Khodim , Head of marketing for Kakao Berau GI association
Cooperating with the Modica PGI Chocolate Consortium is an added value for us under two fundamental aspects for the development of the supply chain. On the one hand, we can establish ourselves, at a European level, as a primary supplier of raw materials - which cannot be produced on the continent - of quality from an organoleptic and health point of view. On the other hand, we will have a qualitative advantage by being able to direct production according to the characteristics and standards of more evolved markets such as the European market.