15 Apr 2013

Cadbury wants more Solomon Islands cocoa

7:26 pm on 15 April 2013

One of the world's largest chocolate producers, Kraft-Cadbury, is seeking 10-thousand tonnes of cocoa from Solomon Islands.

In March, company officials met with cocoa producers, stakeholders and the government to outline its plans for the region.

A spokesperson for Kraft-Cadbury, Alastair Furnival, says the chocolate maker doesn't have enough cocoa to meet its production needs and is looking around the world for new sources, including the Pacific.

However, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Solomon Islands only managed to export 5 thousand tonnes of cocoa last year.

The Ministry's Permanent Secretary, Frank Wickham, says the country has 30 million cocoa trees, but only a quarter of them are productive.

But he says with new genetic material the Solomons could double output by 2020.