Chocolate from India
Cacao is grown in many equatorial nations from West Africa to South America to Oceania. Interestingly cacao has never been grown widely in equatorial India, even though it has an ideal climate.
Last week I was speaking with our Santa Barbara Chocolate agent in Malaysia and he told me how Cadbury, the famous milk chocolate maker of the Dairy Milk chocolate bar, is planning to expand growing cacao in India. This makes a lot of sense because India is a politically stable country with a lot of capacity for cacao growing.
Cadbury hopes to persuade 20 percent of India's coconut farmers to include cacao farming in their plantations. If Cadbury is successful, Indian production of cacao could be up to 150,000 metric tons a year. This would equate to about 3 percent of the world's total production of raw cacao.
Just think, chocolate might end up being on the menu along with madras, curry and tandori.