Bean to bar: a feast of chocolate

Dunedin chocolate-maker Liz Rowe has been inspired by a chocolate festival in the United States....
Dunedin chocolate-maker Liz Rowe has been inspired by a chocolate festival in the United States. Photo by Linda Robertson.
For craft chocolate makers, the United States is where it is all happening.

So a trip to Seattle for a chocolate conference and festival proved very beneficial for Liz Rowe, of Ocho, a Dunedin-based artisan bean-to-bar chocolate maker.

The Northwest Chocolate Festival was a two-day event comprising stalls, workshops, panel discussions and demonstrations, preceded by two days of what was dubbed the Chocolate Makers Unconference, a get-together for chocolate makers.

The only New Zealander to attend the event, Ms Rowe said she found it ''incredibly worthwhile''.

Not only did she gain tips and inspiration, but the event also provided her with an insight into the ''bigger picture'' of the industry and a networking opportunity.

She learned how to do some technical things in her own business a little better, including changing the way she roasted her beans, and she also discovered she was doing ''pretty much the same thing as everybody else is doing''.

A former journalist, Ms Rowe came to Dunedin to study at art school. She also learned Spanish and ended up on an exchange to Mexico, spending six months in Latin America.

While there, she struggled to find ''decent' dark chocolate and, on her return home, she became interested in chocolate-making.

She bought some equipment and ''started mucking around'', launching at the Otago Farmers Market in August last year.

The craft chocolate market was a tiny proportion of total chocolate consumed. There were four producers selling craft chocolate in New Zealand, with a fifth due to start, she said.

Generally, artisan chocolate makers taught themselves, improving as they went along, and all shared the objective of making better chocolate.

Smaller bean-to-bar chocolate makers were much more open and transparent about what they were doing than large-scale chocolate producers, she said.

While it was ''not exactly hand-made'', given she had machinery, it was hands-on.

''Every step of the process is done and controlled by me.''

Ms Rowe's philosophy was to start small and grow the business gradually. She produced a maximum of about 60kg a week from her premises in South Dunedin.

As well as selling at the Otago Farmers Market, she sold online and had started doing some wholesale sales.

Ms Rowe has a range of six bars, including sugar-free. The latest addition was pepper and spice, which featured horopito leaves and kawakawa berries.

She hoped to grow the business so she would be in a position to employ someone, allowing her to spend more time on promotion.

 

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