Our Story

Our vision is for prosperous, connected and empowered smallholder farming communities in the South Pacific.

Our mission is to ethically source high quality food products from the South Pacific, craft them into artisan goods to supply into Australian premium markets and to lift the bar for ethical supply chain partnerships.

Read more about our vision and mission here

Team

The Directors of South Pacific Cacao are Jessica and Brian.

Jessica Pedemont – Cacao Evangelist

Jessica has over 20 years of experience in the culinary arts.

Her passion and focus is pastry, chocolate and sugar craft. She has travelled the world – working, studying and teaching in some of the finest establishments in the industry. As a scholarship winner, Jessica represented Australia, competing at both local and international levels. As a recipient of distinctions and awards from sweet to savoury she continues to strive for excellence in all culinary endeavours.

Jessica also owns Chocolate Artisan, which has been a leading artisan brand for over 10 years and produces a selection of specialist chocolate products such as bon bons, truffles, barks, chocolate coated nuts and other special orders.

Jessica co-founded South Pacific Cacao as she believed her expertise with chocolate and artisan markets would be able to create something extraordinary for rural communities in the South Pacific.

Brian Atkin – Chief Cacao Officer

Brian has a Solomon Islands heritage and has run a self-funded Cacao Social Enterprise based in the Solomon Islands called Makira Gold for over 5 years, working to establish premium markets for Solomon Islands cacao so farmers can receive increased and fair incomes. Initially it began with trying to support his local community in Makira and as supply chain barriers were identified it continued to diversify. This has taken the form of a number of projects including establishing cacao fermentaries with his family the Aoba tribe in Makira, introducing new technologies for drying cacao beans such as the Solar Bubble Dryer, becoming a lead national exporter for premium cocoa beans which includes paying the highest price to farmers by an exporter for cacao beans.

Brian co-founded South Pacific Cacao to accelerate and grow his impact on rural communities in the Solomon Islands which included creating market pathways for a broader range of artisan products.

South Pacific Cacao is Brian and Jessica’s joint project to empower farmers, families and communities in the South Pacific through access to premium artisan markets.