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In fact, Madagascar has a long history of chocolate production, dating back to the early years of the French colonial times, 1937 to be precise. In those days, Madagascar was a major cocoa exporter to a metropolitan France. Today Madagascar's cocoa production is tiny in comparison to the Ivory Coast for example which produce about 38% of the world's cocoa, while almost all cocoa grown in Madagascar come from an area about 50-kilometre in radius and represent less than 1% of the world's cocoa production. The area is within the [[Sambirano]] region, named after a river by the same name that runs from the foothills of Madagascar's highest peak and into the Indian Ocean. The Sambirano riverbed and its surrounding cocoa plantations are enriched with nutrients of the soil through the occurance of annual floods. Unlike many cocoa producing regions in other countries, the area around Sambirano is unique in that it yields a cocoa crop all year round. There is plenty of Criollo (the finest), Forastero (the most common used for bulk cocoa) and Trinitario beans (a cross between the two).
Most if not all cocoa plantations in Madagascar are operated by small independent family-run farming businesses, who have been growing cocoa without use of fertilisers and other mass farming techniques in a natural environment for generations. While slave labour is commonly reported in the cocoa industry, especially in the Ivory Coast, it is non-existent in Madagascar. Much of Sambirano's cocoa grow on former fruit plantations that were in use during the French colonial period. The resulting a crop is uniquely fruit flavoured and naturally sweet, especially suitable for producing non-bitter dark chocolates without use of excessive sugar content or unnatural sweetening agents. The final chocolate product is one that is generally rich in antioxidant flavoinoids, the very healthy and reputedly aphrodisiac ingredients, that can be found in high proportions in pure Malagasy cocoa. <!--(phenylethylamine??)-->
