Fair Trade Cacao Comes to Ireland with Exploding Tree Chocolate
Allison Roberts making chocolate photo credit Anna Groniecka Photography
Like many bean-to-bar craftspeople, Allison Roberts started out as a chocolatier. She began making seasonal creations at the age of 12, sharing and selling her chocolate treats in her hometown in Ontario, Canada. In 2008 she moved to Ireland and, while balancing her love of chocolate making with her day job at a café, began experimenting with ways to make chocolate cleaner and healthier. Some early iterations included blending cocoa powder and cocoa butter with natural alternative sweeteners, like dried mulberries. Today in the small seaside town of Clonakilty, County Cork, Roberts is encouraging Ireland to think about chocolate in a new way.
Fair Trade
6 Exploding Tree chocolate bars photo credit Anna Groniecka Photography
Clonakilty may be a popular beach destination, but it’s also known for being Ireland’s first official Fair Trade town — a distinction that was awarded to them in 2003. Allison became involved with the local group and travelled to Ghana on a “fact-finding mission” to raise awareness about Fair Trade practices. It was an eye-opening experience to see real cacao beans growing on a tree, and it inspired her to begin working with bean-to-bar chocolate back home. Exploding Tree Chocolate was born.
Cacao beans photo credit Anna Groniecka Photography
West African Sourcing
Unlike some other bean-to-bar brands, Exploding Tree focuses on supporting a single region of West Africa. Everything they make uses cacao from this area and is all certified Fair Trade and organic. Allison draws from her experience as a chocolatier to create flavoured chocolate bars (including one with local sea salt and seaweed) and fun, seasonal shapes. One of her favourite experiences is watching children eat their very first Easter egg that she made herself.
Growing a Business
Winnowing beans photo credit Anna Groniecka Photography
Building a craft food business from the ground up has not been without its challenges, and there’s been a hurdle or two along the way. Between running a small business and sharing her knowledge through school workshops, Allison has learned a lot about herself and her own journey that she wouldn’t have any other way. She advises new business owners to “roll with the punches,” stay positive, and trust your own path. Despite encouragement to expand, Allison is happy with the scale her home business has grown into. She now makes all her chocolate in a granny-flat factory behind her house, which has the dual benefit of keeping her overhead costs manageable and allowing her to remain close to her family. She has a small team that helps with tempering, packaging, and cleaning, and a wonderful community all around her. One of Allison’s favourite things about living in Ireland is the amount of support and encouragement offered to independent, family-owned businesses, an element which she feels is lacking in North America.
Exploding Tree's wrapping ladies photo credit Anna Groniecka Photography
Looking Ahead
As Exploding Tree moves into the future, they’re incorporating more sustainable packaging, with the hope of one day doing away with packaging altogether. Allison loves it when people buy bulk, unwrapped chocolate, and is looking for ways to make this even more accessible. She also leads private guided tours of her workspace and teaches bean-to-bar masterclasses.
Could there be a shop and public space in Exploding Tree’s future? Allison loves the idea of a viewable space where people can watch chocolate being made — but she’d need to find the right partner to handle the business and retail side. For now, Allison’s passion is encouraging “alternative thinking of what is possible. If I can have a chocolate factory in this granny flat in my garden, then you can do anything.”