Business View Caribbean | November 2020

72 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN NOVEMBER 2020 eams “ Everything tastes better when it’s infused with love,” says Michelle Smith, owner of Chocolate Dreams in Kingston, Jamaica. When Smith followed her business dream 17 years ago it led her down a path of sweet- tasting decadence – straight to the commodity that once thrived in Jamaican soils before giving way to more lucrative banana crops. “I always thought chocolate was a billion dollar industry and I always wondered why, in Jamaica, when we had a huge cocoa industry years and years ago, we were not doing more of chocolate manufacturing,” Smith relates. “So I decided to brave it and go dabbling in chocolate.” That dabbling took place in Smith’s two-bedroom apartment, where she practiced and experimented with different online recipes and learned how to make her own chocolate indulgences from scratch. Smith had been a baker most of her adult life and the interest in her confections was making its way beyond just those of friends or family. She explains, “I found there were quite a few people that were interested in what I was doing so I decided to launch full-fledged into it at home, having my friends and family to help me when I had big corporate orders to fill. One or two people would see me at trade shows, expos, and corporate events and enquire about AT A GLANCE CHOCOLATE DREAMS WHAT: Manufacturer/retailer of chocolate confections WHERE: Kingston, Jamaica WEBSITE: www.facebook.com/ChocolateDreamsJAMAICA