“The brand AELAN means “Island” in Bislama their national language in Vanuatu, which is an archipelago located in the South West Pacific.
The company is a social enterprise with Aelan Chocolate Makers owns at 80% by ACTIV (Alternative Communities Trade in Vanuatu) Association a local NGO working for the empowerment of the local small-scale producers and communities at the social, economical and environmental levels following the concept of Fair Trade. Since 2010, They work closely with cocoa producers and women groups and cooperatives from different islands of the archipelago.
Aelan Chocolate Makers started officially the artisan chocolate production in 2013 and got into commercial activity early 2015. Our chocolate is made with only cocoa beans and sugar and the Aelan chocolate 70% cocoa are vegan. They are only using natural products (no use of pesticides) from the islands of the archipelago of Vanuatu, which are organic by default. They have a range of island origin with Epi (Gold medal- Japan Awards), Malekula, Malo (Silver Medal- Japan Awards) and Santo and a range of flavored chocolate of 70% cacao with cristallized ginger, cristallized turmeric, coconut (Gold medal- Japan Awards), nangai nuts (Canarium Indicum) (Silver medal- Japan Awards), sea salt (Gold medal- Japan Awards), Cocoa nibs (Gold medal- Japan Awards), coffee (Gold medal- Japan Awards) kava (Piper Methysticum) and Chili pepper.
Aelan Chocolate Makers received international awards for cacao with the cocoa producers from Malekula (Mabong Naki) and Malo (Moli Lui) from France in 2017 with the Cocoa of Excellence “Best 50 cocoa producers of the World” Award, for our Aelan Chocolate in 2017 at the International New Zealand Chocolate Awards (3 Silver medals and 1 Bronze Medal), in 2018 at the Artisan Chocolate Awards in San Francisco in USA (2 Gold medals, 5 Silver Medals and 1 Bronze medal) and in 2021 at the 1st Chocolate elaborated at origin International contest at Paris, France (2 gourmet medal and 1 Gourmet Bronze medal).
Aelan Chocolate Makers products can be find in the following shops:
- ナチュラルハウス
- 伊勢丹(Salon du chocolat)
- Good good mart
- JTB(一村一品マーケット)
- H.I.S nature
- STWorld
Very recently, Aelan Chocolate Makers has been recognized and awarded Five Gold Medal Award and Two Silver Medal Awards by Business News Japan :
Awarded Gold by Business News Japan
Epi Vegan Dark Chocolate 70%
Vegan 70% Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt
Vegan 70% Dark Chocolate with Cocoa Nibs
Vegan 70% Dark Chocolate with Coconut
Vegan 70% Dark Chocolate with Coffee
Awarded Silver by Business News Japan
Malo Vegan Dark Chocolate 70%
Vegan 70% Dark Chocolate with Roasted Nangai Nuts
Interview to SandrineWallez – Managing Director
- As the COVID 19 has seriously affected our local tourist market as ou rcountry is locked since March 2020 we need to increase our export market to continue supporting our local small-scale producers and communities and hope that those awards recognizing the excellence of our Aelan Chocolate will contribute to the success of our chocolate in Japan. We sincerely hope that the Japanese consumers will be confident in purchasing our Aelan Chocolate and it will also assist our distributor finding more markets in Japan.
- We are now opening our export market with already the Japan and New Caledonia and we are looking at exporting more in Japan and opening market for Europe and Australia/ New Zealand”
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