Staff Writer
Cocoa beans grown in the shade of the South American rainforest make the journey to northern Maine to be used in a dessert topping sauce that has caught the sweet attention of chocolate enthusiasts statewide and also recognizes the global environmental issues centering on production of the raw ingredients.
Robin’s Chocolate Sauce, manufactured in the Loring Applied Technology Center on the Loring Commerce Centre in Limestone, is sold in specialty and gourmet stores throughout the state as well as on the Internet.
Locally, the sauce can be found on grocery shelves in Caribou, Fort Fairfield and Presque Isle and at the new Fort Fairfield Community Market.
Robin Jenkins, along with her husband, Mark, and two sons, moved to Fort Fairfield several years ago. Both are involved in the education field, but weekends and the summer months are dedicated to making chocolate sauce.
For years, Jenkins made the sauce as gifts for family members and friends. She gave away jars of the chocolaty concoction to teachers and coaches of her sons. On Jenkins’ wedding day, she received the recipe, presented in a little pewter serving dish, from a friend of her mother’s.
“She told me that I’d make it into something some day,” Jenkins said during a recent interview.
Manufacturing the sauce in the LATC allows Jenkins to work in a licensed commercial kitchen suite, which has been inspected by federal and state officials. The incubator facility takes small business, not ready to purchase large quarters, to foster their growth is a somewhat protected environment.
How the sauce’s ingredients are produced and who grows it is important to Jenkins.
Jenkins’ product is certified as organic and also holds the Fair Trade certification, which means that the farmers in Central and South America receive a fair price for their product. Jenkins explained that as members of a cooperative, the farmers receive ten cents extra per pound above the world price for cocoa.
“The reason that it’s important is because they (the farmers) are subsistence farmers in South America,” said Jenkins.
A portion of the product’s net profits also support the National Wildlife Federation and Sustainable Harvest International.
Having the bean grown in the shade also has an ecological importance to Jenkins. In this method, the cocoa thrives under a canopy of trees that also provide a winter refuge in the rain forest for migratory songbirds, such as the robin that is paired with a cocoa bean on the product’s label.
Beans grown in full sun are planted in fields in which rain forest once stood.
“When buying that chocolate, deforestation is promoted,” said Jenkins. “Farmers become displaced.”
Shade grown crops also can share space with other produce, Jenkins explained.
The dairy ingredients, which go into the chocolate sauce, come from family farms in northern Maine and continue no artificial growth hormones, preservatives or additives. In addition, Jenkins believes that using these local ingredients support the County’s economy.
Jenkins’ inventory includes her original recipe, blueberry, raspberry, ginger pear, tropical dark and orange spice.
The sauce is scheduled to be on the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Web site and in its holiday catalog out this fall, which is expected to expose chocolate sauce to a larger amount of potential customers.
For recipes and further information, log on to www.robinschocolate.com.
Aroostook Republican photo/Debra Walsh
ROBIN’S CHOCOLATE SAUCE is produced at the Loring Applied Technology Center in Limestone by Robin Jenkins of Fort Fairfield. Included in her inventory are raspberry, tropical dark and blueberry chocolate sauce. The gourmet dessert topping is manufactured using shade grown cocoa beans and Fair Trade certified.
