Obroni and the Chocolate Factory

by Steven Wallace

  In the meantime, I had other things to worry about. The Fancy Food Show would open in just five weeks.

  Five plus two plus one.

  * * *

  Another week passed as I waited for Sarpong to complete another sample production run. On June 3, 1994, another Maersk ship sailed from Tema without our chocolate aboard. On a more encouraging note, my preproduction publicity efforts paid off. A small article on Omanhene appeared in Gourmet magazine. Two orders resulted—our first customers.

  We had no product to ship them.

  Sarpong had corrected his erroneous recipe percentages and, in a letter, he reconfirmed the correct formulation. This time all ingredients added up to 100 percent. I acknowledged his corrections and asked for a portion of the order to be shipped by airfreight instead of sea freight, in the fading hope that we would have samples in time for the Fancy Food Show. By this point, we were four weeks from the opening.

  The prospects for public failure at the Fancy Food Show mounted. What sort of chocolate company goes to a food exhibition without samples? Yet this would be the best chance I had to garner publicity for our launch. If I wanted to include anyone from the Ghana Cocoa Board, I needed to invite them now. Either they would be part of our triumph, seeing firsthand how much fun a product launch can be (and I’m distressed that the potential for fun, for joint accomplishment, keeps getting forgotten), or else they’ll bear witness to Omanhene’s humiliation. I wrote to Flt. Lt. Joseph Bonsu-Mensah at the Ghana Cocoa Board and invited him to attend the Fancy Food Show in New York.

  On June 17, 1994, Sarpong confirmed by fax that he was starting full production of the Omanhene samples and that he would make the next Maersk, which was to sail on June 24. At Kojo’s suggestion, I called in reinforcements.

  “Steven, let’s ask my sister to supervise,” Kojo said. I was grateful for the offer, but I had no idea whether his sister knew anything about chocolate. My mind raced: I trusted Kojo without question, but I couldn’t see how his sister, whom I’d never met and who, so far as I knew, had no food-manufacturing experience, could assist. I sensed that Kojo had something up his sleeve. Even over the phone, I could practically see Kojo flashing me a grin. “Steven, my sister Aduah is a food chemist by training. She worked for the US Food and Drug Administration in Washington, DC, before returning to Ghana.”

  Aduah was more knowledgeable than Kojo and I put together when it came to food technology and production. Somehow, it had never occurred to Kojo to mention this before. Even with Aduah on the case, however, the next Maersk steamship sailed on June 24, without our chocolate.

  Five plus two plus one.

  I resigned myself to the fact that there was no way we could get a container of chocolate to the US before the Fancy Food Show.

  * * *

  Three weeks until the Fancy Food Show. Every time the fax chirped, I ran to the machine to watch the paper emerge. Ghana’s Ambassadors to the US and to the UN both announced that they wanted to attend the show, as did Flt. Lt. Joseph Bonsu-Mensah. This had become a feeding frenzy! It would be a full-on diplomatic event. Getting wind of the Stateside political interest in Omanhene and sensing, perhaps, that we might possibly succeed, Mr. Sarpong decided to come, too; Daniel Gyimah arranged for him to join us courtesy of a USAID business-exchange program. John Roberts, the Fancy Food Show executive director, graciously offered to give my guests a personal VIP tour of the exhibition floor. Was it possible that things were ripening at long last?

  And then I received a fax from Sarpong, confirming that he had sent three hundred chocolate bars via DHL air freight, so in a few days we would have a few, very precious samples for the show. When the bars arrived, somehow I managed to restrain myself, waiting until I could share the chocolate with Linda. She’d been working late at her office, so I phoned her. “It’s here, the chocolate is here. I’m on my way downtown.” It was around nine o’clock in the evening when she slipped into our minivan, parked in front of her building.

  I handed her one bar and took another for myself. I smelled the chocolate through the wrapper, savoring the aroma. Linda had already ripped the label off and split the bar in half. The snap was sharp. Satisfying. The color? Perfect.

  I took a bite. I held the morsel on my tongue and pushed it against the roof of my mouth. It slowly began to melt. Sublime! Wonderful mouthfeel. Great flavor. I wondered how we could have gone from the chalky mess of four weeks ago to this, in so short a time? But I was determined not to let thoughts of Sarpong spoil this moment. This was a time for celebration.

  First, though, I looked at Linda, my toughest critic. My skeptic. She tried the chocolate, thought for a moment, then turned to me.

  She smiled as she quoted a line from our favorite movie featuring talking barnyard animals: “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

  “I think so, too,” I said. “I think we can sell this.”

  Linda gave me a quick kiss and hurried back to work, pausing to grab another bar of chocolate for her purse. I was ecstatic.

  * * *

  Ten days later, the morning before the show opened, my brother Jon and I entered the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York. We held a map of the building; the main hall looked large enough to moor a Navy dirigible. The building was mostly empty, save for random huddles of exhibitors sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups as they contemplated setting about the chore of erecting their displays. The easy bonhomie, that trademark of tradeshow exhibitors, was nowhere to be found. It was too early in the morning, and there was little point in jocularity. Jon and I studied the map, trying to figure out where our booth was located. Duct tape on the floor marked each booth space and the pedestrian aisles, but there was no signage yet. We tried to get our bearings, peering at the floor as if looking for a gravestone. At last, we found our spot.

  Next door stood a bearded man in denim cutoffs. He started a company that makes rugelach, the Jewish pastry. He had wheeled in plastic canisters the size of kitchen garbage cans that contained components of a folding booth, which sprang together almost instantly with a tensility that would make Buckminster Fuller proud. Clearly, he had done this before. We walked over to his booth and introduced ourselves, just as a golf cart sped down the aisle and stopped in front of our booth space. The driver’s meaty hands enveloped the tiny plastic steering wheel. In the back of the cart, a helper heaved two FedEx boxes toward the center of our booth. The boxes somersaulted over each other as the driver checked his clipboard.

  “Booth 2457: Oman … Oma … I dunno what the fuck kinda name that is. Two boxes. That’s all.” I briefly considered telling them both just what the fuck kinda name it is: Omanhene, the repository of moral and ethical authority in Ghana and the honorific title of a traditional leader. A paramount chief. But before I could say a word, the driver pushed his foot to the pedal, and the cart sped off.

  I felt especially small. Jon and I unpacked the two boxes containing the brochures and a sign I had made back in Milwaukee. I had ordered a folding table, and in no time at all we pieced together what must have been the most modest booth in the entire convention center. By midday, elaborate, pop-up booths with backlit displays surrounded us. Some companies had installed pavilions taking up thirty times the space of Omanhene. I surveyed our simple, skirted table. A banner waited to be hung from the back drapery; once-neat stacks of literature had slid over like fallen soufflés; chocolate bars and tins of cocoa awaited stacking. The Omanhene booth was insignificant compared to the majestic presentation of our competitors. Other exhibitors had employed teams of workers to build the pop-up hospitality suites and to install working kitchens. Jon and I had very little left to do, since our booth was so small and unadorned. I convinced myself that our booth possessed a minimalist beauty. It took some effort.

  Jon decided to scope out the competition and returned with his recon: “I just saw the Cadbury booth. It’s larger than our house.”

  “Probably costs four times as much,” I said. I fanned out several brochures on the tabl
e and stepped back to admire my work. “I think simple is better,” I said, still trying to convince myself.

  The show opened the next day, and the first retailer to place an order at our booth turned out to be Orange Tree Imports—a specialty food store in Madison, Wisconsin. I had spent $10,000 to come exhibit in New York for an order I could have written simply by driving ninety minutes west of my house.

  I left Jon at the booth and went to meet the Ghanaian delegation. I stepped outside the hulking convention center, sheathed in dark glass. Three black Cadillacs pulled up, always a production. I suspected that this must be the delegation. Drivers scooted out to open the passenger doors. The first thing I noticed was a pair of magnificent Bruno Magli boots worn by the UN Ambassador. Senior ministers and ambassadors to countries like the US and the UK tend to dress smartly, accustomed to international travel and conscious of the fact they represent, by word, deed, and appearance, the Republic of Ghana.

  By contrast, Sarpong emerged last of all, looking jet-lagged; he wore an ill-fitting suit. The cuffs on the pants were so long, they puddled like draperies behind his heels, compelling him to shuffle and slide instead of stepping normally. Back in my Sunyani days, Ghanaian schoolmates resorted to the same sort of shuffling when wearing the traditional red-leather sandals. Sarpong’s suit jacket sleeves reached to his fingertips, as if a fifth-grade kid had borrowed a suit from his college-aged brother. With a tight fist, Sarpong gripped the top of a worn fabric grocery bag. Did he bring a bag lunch? Was he trying to embarrass me? Or was he just as unfamiliar with the ways of New York as I once was—still am—in Accra? How much difference was there, after all, between this greenhorn Ghanaian and the American guy who tied a windbreaker around his waist back in 1978?

  John Roberts met us curbside, and after a round of introductions, our group set off on the tour. The ambassadors seemed impressed by the size of the venue and the fact that the president of the trade association was here to meet them. I imagined the ambassadors rarely had the chance to attend public events that weren’t tightly scripted. They looked delighted to be here. For the first time, I sensed that Omanhene served as something of a poster child for Ghana. There simply aren’t any companies from Ghana with a visible consumer presence in the US. My company means something. The wives of the ambassadors accompanied us, each dressed in vivid kente cloth, striking and elegant, with gold cuffs and necklaces bright against their dark skin. Our merry band, wide-eyed at the spectacle of the exhibition, strolled down the aisles of the show, while an NASFT staff photographer, as well as one from the Embassy, crouched to record the moment. I noticed that very few exhibitors were dark-skinned, and our entourage seemed to attract attention. People were respectful, as almost everyone recognized John Roberts, but they did double takes, some outright staring and pointing at our strange parade of colorful African garb, luxury Italian footwear, and ill-fitting suits. I loved this. It reminded me of walking the streets of Sunyani, where I would invariably find myself the center of attention.

  After the tour, we returned to the booth where Jon was busily engaged with attendees. Sarpong asked if he could set out some samples of cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, and chocolate bars with the Golden Tree label, about as far as you could get from anybody’s idea of Fancy Food. He held out the bag to show me. The samples were poorly packaged, with nicked labels and smudged printing—in short, they were a mess, an embarrassment.

  “Paul,” I say deliberately using his first name—my town, my prerogative—“I’m sorry, but this is the Omanhene booth. You can’t put your samples out here. I paid for this booth, and we are celebrating Omanhene’s debut.”

  Poor Paul looked pathetic.

  “I just thought, there is plenty of room,” he said, gesturing to the table. True enough, we might have made some room. But that would miss the point. He’d had years to develop a recipe and a brand suitable for export, and he failed to do so. I invested heavily in the effort, and I wanted a minimalist, elegant aesthetic for the Omanhene booth, one that showcased the simplicity of ingredients and our authentic origins. The Omanhene “look” did not include Sarpong’s poorly packaged, paraffin-laced crap that he passed off as chocolate. And, out of rank courtesy, he might have asked ahead of time instead of just showing up with a bag of samples, thinking I wouldn’t mind. Asking first would have been, well, the polite thing to do.

  My emotions were reeling. I needed to walk. I left Jon and the Ghanaians at the booth.

  Especially now that I had chocolate samples, I had returned to my overarching goal in attending the show: to obtain a mention in the New York Times. I kept a sharp eye out for Times food writer Florence Fabricant, though I didn’t really know what she looked like aside from publicity headshots. I’d never met her personally. Each time a woman walked past me, I found myself regarding the credential badge hanging, like a long necklace, from a logo-littered lanyard around every neck. But I didn’t see Fabricant’s name.

  Then, two days later, Florence Fabricant stopped by our booth—almost. She stood a foot or so away from the edge of the table, looking, studying, not yet wanting to engage with Jon or me. I confirmed it was she with a quick double take of her press credentials. She had stunning silver hair and perfect posture. I was struck by the difference between her photo on the jacket of her cookbooks and her appearance when working: a reporter’s notebook in one hand, pen in the other, and slung over her shoulder an oversize leather bag stuffed with sales sheets and product brochures. I sensed she had had a long day, enduring one enthusiastic business pitch after another. Please, Florence, one sentence is all I need from you. If not an entire sentence, then a sentence fragment will do.

  She paused, conducting a visual scan of our booth, an exercise that took but a second or two.

  I did what I had been doing for so many years: I waited.

  Patience, patience. I tried not to appear too eager, here in this exhibition hall brimming with unctuous optimism. Then, before she stepped away, I stepped forward. “Thank you for stopping,” I said as I handed her my newly printed business card and our brochure. “Omanhene,” I coached her: “It rhymes with cocoa beanie.” She smiled. She was tired, clearly, but she smiled, and her tough, journalistic carapace softened, just a tiny bit.

  Victory.

  Of a sort. The following day, the New York Times local edition contained one sentence—one glorious sentence—about Omanhene, which the Times misspelled.

  “Omanahene.”

  Obi nhyε kontrofi mma onwe son aba.

  One does not force the baboon to eat the tamarind fruit.

  “The tamarind fruit is a favorite of the baboon. There is no need to force the baboon to eat it. Do not try to teach someone what he already knows or enjoys.”

  My AFS host father, Yaw Brobbey (center), with two of his wives. Sunyani, 1978.

  The Sunyani house of Yaw Brobbey and my home during the summer of 1978.

  My and my Brobbey siblings. I am in the back row, center-right. Sunyani, 1978.

  My siblings pounding fufu in the courtyard of the Brobbey home. Sunyani, 1978.

  A cocoa tree laden with cocoa pods.

  My father, DW, and me, circa 1991, about the time I started the Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company.

  Preparing a bench sample of Omanhene 80-percent cocoa chocolate to get the recipe correct, prior to committing to a full production run. Tema, Ghana.

  Factory production worker in front of console. Tema, Ghana.

  Prior to setting up our booth at the 1994 Fancy Food Show at the Javits Convention Center in New York City.

  My father, DW, working the Omanhene booth at a DPQ wine tasting event somewhere in Wisconsin.

  Me staffing the Omanhene booth at the Fancy Food Show, New York City.

  “Always be selling.” Me addressing the African Growth and Opportunity Act Forum at the pink convention center in Accra, Ghana.

  Note the boxes of Omanhene chocolate I carefully placed on the lectern.

  Omanhene Hot Cocoa Mix stacked on a table at
a DPQ wine tasting somewhere in Wisconsin.

  Me and the goods: from bean to bar.

  Omanhene’s flagship gift box of dark milk chocolate.

  CHAPTER 8

  We’re in Business

  With our mention in the New York Times and some favorable customer feedback, Omanhene was gaining attention for our chocolate, our business model, and even our packaging. For our flagship box, we received the Package Design Council’s Certificate of Design Excellence, an international award. (In November 1994, we went on to win the coveted Gold Medal in the final round of the Package Design Council competition.) Chocolatier magazine included Omanhene in its inaugural chocolate-tasting Caribbean cruise. Inquiries abounded, but I had to learn to focus on the sales leads that mattered.

  A broker brought us an inquiry from the big-box retailer Costco, interested in a Christmas order of our gift boxes—a $500,000 trial run. But I wondered if we were ready to handle an order of this size. First, our gift box, despite the accolades its design had received, consisted of seven separate pieces of cardstock that had to be hand-folded and assembled, a bit of origami that took several minutes to complete before you could hand-fill the box with chocolate. We would later redesign the box, eliminating two of the components, but for now, either my father, brother, or I was folding and filling every Omanhene gift box. Outsourcing the folding proved incredibly expensive—the many bindery operations I visited remarked that they had never seen such a complicated box. Their pricing reflected this difficulty.