Puratos Grand-Place Viet Nam has won an international award for producing the best cocoa in the Asia-Pacific region.— File Photo

HCM CITY (Biz Hub)— Puratos Grand-Place Viet Nam has won an international award for producing the best cocoa in the Asia-Pacific region.

The International Cocoa Award, which is part of the "Cocoa of Excellence" programme, was awarded at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris last week.

The award aims to celebrate the diversity of cocoa flavours from all over the world and to recognise overall excellence in processing the beans.

The award is reward for intense R&D work on fermentation and drying started by a team in 2009 with the intention of creating a new chocolate from high-quality beans, company representatives said.

Next week, the company will open a first-of-its-kind Cocoa Collection and Fermentation Plant in southern Ben Tre Province, as well as a Cocoa Development Centre.— VNS