Mott Green

Chocolate maker Mott Green was co-founder of the Grenada Chocolate Company, a producer of quality, organic dark chocolate created from its own cocoa beans in a factory situated in Grenada’s lush rainforest. Together with Edmond Brown and Doug Browne, Mott established the company in 1999 and has been pursuing his “green dreams” ever since.

The Cultivation of an Organic Dream

Mott was the initial visionary behind the Grenada Chocolate Company. Originally a New Yorker, he first visited the island with his physician father as a curious and imaginative 15-year old boy. Accompanying his dad to the medical school that was located on the island, Green intently watched the pods on the lush cacao trees and eagerly learned about the rich and luscious chocolate that was produced from those pods. As Mott discovered that the plump cocoa beans grown and cultivated by skilled natives on the island were then shipped off to far away countries to be formed into chocolate bars that were distributed across the world, a dream began to sprout in the young boy’s mind. “Why couldn’t the chocolate be produced right there on the island?” he wondered. From that speculation, the sprout of a dream slowly began to take root and grow until it developed into the Grenada Chocolate Company.

Having lived on and off the island for more than 20 years now, Mott Green doesn’t think of himself as an expatriate. Instead, he often refers to himself as an “ex-tourist.” Between his visits to New York, Philadelphia and Oregon, Mott can be found residing in a small room within the factory. It was during one of his escapades to Oregon that Green met up with Doug Browne and the two formed a friendship. When Browne visited Green on the island early in 1999, Green’s sprout of a dream was revisited, and it slowly began to take shape and develop. Sipping unrefined cocoa in Green’s creaking bamboo hut, the two resolved to tackle the dream and make it a reality. Green and Browne asked their friend, Edmond Brown, to be a part of their endeavour, and a dream that started as a small sprout in a young boy’s mind was cultivated into a chocolate empire.

Carbon-Neutral Transport Across the Atlantic

From the very beginning, there was no question in the minds of the trio as to how the chocolate would be cultivated, produced and distributed. It would be locally grown by native farmers and produced on the island in a solar-powered factory. The product would be distributed throughout the Caribbean by sailboat, and all workers would be paid fairly.

Green’s dream of luscious, organic chocolate produced from bean to bar right on the island is still growing today, even after his untimely death. As the Grenada Chocolate Company grew into a nationally recognized maker of quality, organic chocolate, Green’s dream expanded to transporting the chocolate “carbon neutral” from the lush and tropical island in the West Indies to U.S and European markets. This dream also became a reality as Mott and the rest of the Grenada Chocolate Company teamed up with Fairtransport, a Dutch company dedicated to the sustainable transport of goods across the nation by means of wind power and sailing. The end result was this Gru Grococo bar which can be purchased from Rococo Chocolates.

Early in March 2012, Grenada’s world-renowned chocolate disembarked for the first time by sailboat across the Atlantic. From the shores of the lush rainforest and tropical island to European ports, the Tres Hombres, a 32-metre brigantine, transported the rich dark chocolate as the bars matured in the solar and wind-cooled holding area over the 6-week journey.