Since my sister in law started calling me ‘Monsieur Chocolat’ – with a French touch, I had to post this funny AXE advert spot, self-identification case in point:
Archive for the 'Marketing' Category
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A while ago I passed by a local Neuhaus branch and for fun decided to jump in and have a look around. I noticed they had a bar collection of origin flavours I wouldn’t expect at this typical ‘pralinier’ brand, so off course I was rather curious to get their story. It turns out Neuhaus is offering an origin range with also a Sao Tomé, a West Africa and a Trinidad. They do so since 2005 at least but I hadn’t noticed them yet, then again the visibility is rather low at Neuhaus.
(more packaging photos on Flickr)
What is well done on this bar is the packaging: it opens like a booklet, and comes tied in with branded ribbon. Once unwrapped the packing reveals a bar foiled in yellowish paper. It’s one that clearly stand out from its competitors.
Ocumare de la Costa, a town near the Venezuelan “chocolate coast”, is a spot that delivers well-fermented Criollo with lots of delicate high notes. Local family-run cooperatives are harvesting some of the finest organic cacao in the world and the ‘Ocumare’ is the type of cocoa bean that gave Criollo its reputation they say.
For the bar itself, that is designed in bite size chunks, the texture is thick, smooth but not creamy, with a soft & munchy bite character that complements the luscious nature of the cacao. Aromas come one after another and hints nuts and cream, strawberries and has a clear ending that closes a modest but decently complex profile. This unobtrusive tasting experience makes this bar addictively easy to eat. Neuhaus (had) created a mild and very accessible origin flavour that doesn’t come too bitter at all, maybe some might discuss on the aftertaste.
All in all, I think this first Neuhaus origin bar was a nice discovery, and when the Ocumare wasn’t an immediate punch in the face, I surely may check out Neuhaus’ other flavours and buy some bars next time I walk by their store.
How could I not think about that earlier while writing my previous article “The Chocolate Secret of Ferran Adrià” !? The latter post eventually was an introduction to Amedei, the chocolate admired by El Bulli’s top chef. But there is indeed a story were Adrià really has a chocolate secret, one that actually lies with his older brother.
Ferran’s talented chef brother Albert Adrià is one of the key founders & partners of Cacao Sampaka, a company established with backup from Chocovic, the fine chocolate producing company rooted in Spain. Now to be clear before we continue, Cacao Sampaka is a store concept that is conceived as “Cacao Markets” and as such is not exactly delivering the products and quality that would fit our “Cacao Aficionado’s and Chocolate Sommeliers”, but there is a huge cacao history & culture to discover in the gastronomic roots of Barcelona, the stubborn Catalunyan culture and the historic position of Spain.
With Spain being the first country to experience cacao upon arrival from the New World, as well as having the inventor of the first chocolate making machine produced in 1780, Barcelona has a deep rooted history in chocolate. This gourmet city boasts not only a Confectionery Guild, a Pastry and Confectioner School, a Museum of Chocolate, a plethora of patissiers and chocolatiers, but also one of Spain’s oldest and largest chocolate couverture manufacturers, Chocovic, which is located only one hour north of Barcelona in Vic. Wandering the streets around La Rambla, Barri Gotic and El Born in particular, you are certain to stroll by and discover Barcelona’s love of chocolate.
From the first of my several visits to Barcelona back in the nineties I remember my girlfriend was raving about the hot chocolate served in Bar Schilling, a chocolate so deliciously thick you could almost put your spoon straight up in the cup. Later on I started discovering small chocolate stores as Xocoa, also a local brand with several branches in town, that has recently been expanding towards Madrid, Valencia and Alicante a.o. And eventually some years ago the Barcelona chocolate culture made me discover the luscious Cacao Sampaka stores. [update] Sampaka actually is a tiny place in Koulikoro, Mali, Africa, though I’m not sure if that is where Cacao Sampaka’s name is derived from. Its apparently also a location in Indonesia, which makes more sense for cacao… [/update] The brand is conceived as a cosmopolitan concept for a high quality chocolate shop and cafeteria, offering an indulgent shopping experience with around 300 cacao based products, ranging from bars to bonbons, and ice creams to sauces…
Continue reading ‘The Real Chocolate Secret of Ferran Adrià’
That was the title on the cover of a magazine. The founder of El Bulli had a chocolate secret? Even for half an interesting page I had to buy that magazine! The article eventually is a nice introduction into the world of the purest fine dark origin cacao, and breathes my observations on the evolution chocolate has gone through during the latest years.
For long the label ‘Belgium’ evoked an atmosphere of best quality chocolate, linked to the craftsmanship of artisan chocolatiers that made ‘pralines‘, chocolate shapes filled with all kinds of flavoured fillings ranging from elaborated nuts, marzipan, pastes to liquor creams. And with a bunch of world class cacao producing brands on our soil too, we sure have a heritage in chocolate that would fill more than one book. Moreover even a lot of our tourism is driven by this chocolate attitude.
However times change, and since long to me Belgium is no longer a country of dark chocolate, but one of ‘just’ sweet chocolates. This small re-interpretation of the word “chocolate” vs. “chocolates” in English implies a whole lot of differences, it are even to very different worlds. Even our most famous “praliniers” like Pierre Marcolini and Dominique Persoone have actually (very) little to do with cacao or chocolate: they all focus on pushing and experimenting with flavours under the thin chocolate umbrella.
This article in Gentleman’s magazine appropriately puts one of the world’s top cacao brands in the spotlight: Amedei, the house of Alessio and Cecilia Tessieri. Brother and sister Tessieri build their brand after their learning period at the french master chocolatier Valrhona. For the record, Valrhona was the first chocolate brand ever to label a bar ‘Grand Cru‘. The marketing term was coined when the company launched the first single origin bar in 1986 (Guanaja 70%, a mixture from South America).
Since Tessieri left Valrhona and to take revenge for their split, they started to work from Tuscany on what became the world’s premium on chocolate, based on the finest single origin selection of Chuao and Porcelana cacaobeans. Since long Chuao is a tiny village located in the northern coastal range of Venezuela, where beans of a very rare quality are harvested. Valhrona used to be the main taker of the Chuao yields, bit through very hard negotiations and a diabolic price war, Amedei kicked Valrhona from Chuao and obtained the monopoly on the most desirable cacao beans in the world. It’s still unclear where brands like Bonnat get their Chuao beans from now for their signature bars.
In this niche of top level chocolate we also find competitors like Michel Cluizel, Domori, ScharffenBerger, Pralus and some more, but what makes them special is the fact that they work with single estate cacao, and control the process “from bean to bar”. They control the quality of each harvest, buy at the source or even run their own plantations. Secondly they do not rely on blends to maintain a stable taste pattern, but work with the yields of a single harvest. This results in a pure uncontaminated taste that allows variations in aromas depending on the harvest, just like in wine vintages. Valrhona effectively has 3 bars that are launched by single estate and by year: the Grand Couva, Palmira and Ampamakia. I’ve been buying them since 2005, and I’m looking forward to buy the 2008 edition on my trip to Paris later this year.
For connaisseurs, the Amedei is range is estimated to be the best in the world, lauded by the french Maître Chocolatier Pierre Hermé and the bespoken Ferran Adrià, chef of the world famous El Bulli restaurant in Spain. When I checked the Wikipedia entry for Amedei, to my surprise and pleasure the picture that accompanied the article was a photo of me that I actually took for my Afficionado collection! I bite that one 
This weekend we had the 2008 edition of Open Company Day in Flanders. Antwerp’s famous Maître Chocolatier Erik Goossens open his doors too to the public for a free peek behind the scenes in his shop and factory. It was evident that I went for a visit to taste the atmosphere, and with typical Belgian weather, it didn’t take to long to queue.
Erik Goossens is very passionate about making chocolates and also does rather good marketing around it. Next to the famous “Antwerpse Handjes“, a hand shaped praline filled with the typical Antwerp liquor “Elixir d’Anvers”, that inspires ‘hospitality’, he recently also launched a series inspired by the origin of Antwerp typography and printing as a tribute to Plantin & Moretus. Available pralines are shaped as 16th century lead letter for printing pressings. During the visit, you could see all of his pralines come alive from the tempering chocolate wheels, through stuffing and covering machines, getting their finishing touch and disappear in worldwide shipping ballotins, handled with care.
Erik Goossens is also the author of the “Chocolate Codex“, a comprehensive and passionate book I’ll surely buy some time, with a great overview on everything cacao. History, origins & usages, the bean and production process, industry overview and a selection of major brands pass the revue, spiced with some unique recipes. This book or Codex ‘breathes’ chocolate all over, a recommended read that comes with a golden finish.
I was one of the last visitors and while taking some photo’s of the atelier, chocolatier Goossens joked at me if I was taking them for a magazine, and we started chatting. I started talking about my dark cacao passion, to which he at first reacted with caution, probably given the situation that he is mainly working on pralines and sweet chocolate bites. Though since we have a shared good friend, I’ll soon go for a beer with them to continue about pure chocolate bars and origin cacao… In the meantime you can have a look behind the scenes too on my set of Chocolatier Goossens photos on Flickr.
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