PNG chocolates and spices at Auckland Food Show

Papua New Guinea’s chocolates and spices will be showcased at the Pacific Trade Invest (PTI) New Zealand, Pacific Hub at the Auckland Food Show.

Queen Emma Chocolates and Paradise Spices are manufactured by Papua New Guinea’s largest food manufacturers, Paradise Foods.

The company’s core business is its 31 brands including biscuits, snack foods, chocolates, spices, beverages.  But this time around, they are focused on promoting their chocolates and spices range.

Karina Makori of the Queen Emma Chocolate Company & Paradise Spices said they are excited to be coming to the Auckland Food Show for the first time. They have had several enquiries from New Zealand for chocolate, cocoa powder and spices especially vanilla.

“This will be our first time to participate in a NZ Food or Trade Show, hence we are very excited for this opportunity,” said Ms Makori.

“We are the largest Food Manufacturer in PNG, our core businesses are Biscuits, Snack foods and Beverage. Chocolate and Spices are our new additions and we see it as a great opportunity to market our products, especially our chocolate and spices in the South Pacific and even other parts.

Seeing that the Auckland Foods Show is visited by 30,000+ visitors there is potential opportunity to connect with interested buyers,” she said.

The company is currently exporting spices into Australia only but are also working on exporting chocolate and associated products in the next month or so.

Their biggest point of difference Ms Makori points out is PNG cocoa is graded as having 90% fine flavour and grown naturally.

“Our 75% dark chocolate is made from single sourced cocoa beans from different areas in PNG which all have unique flavours. Similarly, our spices have fresh, unique flavour profiles.”

According to the PNG Cocoa Board, Cocoa Market Report 2016, Cocoa represents 44 per cent of PNG’s total exports.  The bulk is sent to Malaysia.  Thirty one per cent is shipped to the USA, 13 per cent to Singapore, 9 per cent to Belgium and 1 per cent to Indonesia and Germany.  Less than 1 per cent goes to France, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand.

Ms Makori is attending the Auckland Food Show with Robert Ori who is the Business Development Manager, Beverages, Snacks, Chocolate and Spices.

They are hoping to meet potential buyers for our chocolate, cocoa mass, cocoa powder and cocoa butter products as well as our range of spices.

Paradise Foods joins eight other Pacific food and beverage companies from the Pacific Islands under the PTI NZ banner at The Pacific Hub.

The company has a long history in Papua New Guinea going back to when it was established in 1933 as a small-town bakery in the gold fields of Bulolo.  The Morobe Bakery merged with the Paradise Bakery Group in 1992.  Arnotts Biscuits/Campbell Soup Company bought 80% of the company and changed its name to Arnotts Biscuits (PNG) Limited.  But Arnotts sold its stake in July 2007 to two minority shareholders creating a 100% PNG owned company.  The name changed to Paradise Foods Limited under CEO, David Peate as Managing Director.

 

Photo Queen Emma Chocolate Factory/Facebook