Chef opens Senegal's first artisan chocolate shop

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This chef has opened Senegal’s first artisan chocolate shop

Location: Dakar, Senegal

Belgian-Congolese chef Danuta Nganko

started her chocolate company Venko

after being forced to abandon plans to open her own restaurant

(SOUNDBITE) (English) VENKO OWNER AND FOUNDER, DANUTA NGANKO SAYING:

"I work with Belgian chocolate, but the idea is to take a very classical chocolate and work it with local flavors. So we work a lot with bissap, which is very well known here, but also try to bring back to life flavors that maybe people forget a bit about like Konkonron, which is a nut which is almost disappearing. And I hope that moving forward my work could help to put those flavours a bit into fashion, and maybe try to save some of those."

"Now I think the next challenge will be to accustom Senegalese customers to buying chocolate on a day-to-day basis. Because they do now for dinner, for a gift, for a special occasion, but they are not yet to buy chocolate as something just to have in your fridge and take a bite. But we will get there."