Our Awesome Food project is to retrofit ChocoSol’s Subaru Sambar mini-truck with everything it needs to be an off-grid mobile chocolate factory and one-stop shop for education and demonstration of all things chocolate and renewable energy. We have pedal-powered machinery, solar panels, battery packs and a one-of-a-kind solar roaster, which, together with our retrofitted mini-truck will give us the ability to travel to any location and make chocolate on the spot with no emissions, educating passers-by about renewable energy, horizontal trade relationships and our community while connecting them with cacao in a way they’ve never experienced before.

What makes our project awesome is that we are using pure photons to connect people to chocolate through a groundbreaking platform that is a step on the path towards a fully functional, self-contained, off-grid shipping container chocolate factory. We will set up around town and people will get to pedal a pedal powered grinder to turn the beans they just roasted with sunlight into chocolate and cool them in the evaporative cooler near at hand. In 30 minutes someone will be able to experience each step of the process that turns a cacao bean into a chocolate treat, all while learning about the producer communities in Mexico, the nutritive value of cacao as well as our blossoming community of actionists here in Toronto.

We have a great team of technologists, builders and eager monkeys who have what it takes to turn this dream into a reality. ChocoSol is a learning community and a social enterprise. Chocolate has been the vehicle that fuels the commotion and contagion which accompanies our research into sustainable agro-ecological processes and we are taking it to the next level now with our 7th generation Solar Fire powered electric hybrid cacao and coffee bean roaster.