Indian model will get silver at Worldwide Chocolate awards

Paul and Mike, an artisanal Kerala-based ‘bean to bar’ chocolate maker is savouring the style of success. It has grow to be the primary Indian firm to win a silver within the Worldwide Chocolate Awards (2020-2021 world closing) for its ‘64 % Darkish Sichuan Pepper and Orange Peel Vegan Chocolate’.

“Now we have been experimenting with flavours and this explicit variant was focused on the Chinese language market. As Sichuan pepper is extensively utilized in Chinese language and South-East Asian delicacies, we thought this variant can be excellent for his or her palate. The chocolate is vegan. Candied orange peel is used so as to add texture,” explains Vikas Temani, enterprise head and founding father of Paul and Mike.

Paul and Mike launched the award-winning chocolate in Could 2019. When firm executives visited the Worldwide Chocolate truthful in Shanghai in December 2019, they launched this explicit selection and it was bought out inside days. They discovered that the hot-and-sweet mix was doing nicely within the Indian market too.

“The chocolate has warmth and sweetness. It produces a tingling sensation on the tongue and other people take pleasure in that. A bar prices ₹250. Proper from inception, our thought was to promote wonderful, artisanal chocolate at inexpensive costs. Even mass produced in style European manufacturers value extra,” Vikas says.

The ‘bean to bar’ chocolate makers have been profitable bronze awards on the Asia Pacific finals and had been sending their product to the world finals for the final two years.

What’s within the identify

The identify of the model has an attention-grabbing story behind it. Positive flavour cocoa comes from South America whereas Africa is the most important producer of bulk grade cocoa. To grasp the farming and fermentation of wonderful cocoa, a workforce had visited a couple of South American international locations about 4 years in the past.

“We met a number of farmers and fermenters there they usually gave us the boldness that Kerala can be excellent to develop wonderful cocoa. Amongst them had been Paul and Mike, two pleasant farmers who went out of the best way to assist us perceive the method and get the very best from the cocoa beans. We determined to call the model ‘Paul and Mike’ of their honour. Furthermore, buyer suggestions proved that the identify struck a chord with them,” says Vikas.

Cocoa is dried and fermented on Paul And Mike’s farms in Kochi and Coimbatore. As well as, moist cocoa is sourced from choose farmers in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh and solely actual fruits, nuts, spices and floral distillates are used within the candies. “Since we’re backed by Synthite, a pure meals elements firm, we get the very best spices and pure extracts for our candies.”

Paul and Mike even have all kinds of flavours for the Indian client akin to Indian Model Thandai, Peppermint Gelato, Sitaphal (custard apple), Jamun (java plum), Alphonso Mango and so forth.

“Jaggery, as an example, is sourced from two brothers in Pune who approached us for brand spanking new choices in jaggery. They wished to know if we might develop a chocolate with jaggery. In the identical manner, we determined that we’d use Indian fruits akin to jamun, mango, custard apple, and rasbhari (golden berry) as an alternative of blueberry, cranberry and so forth. The truth is, for a lot of Indian prospects, these had been the primary variants of Paul and Mike that they purchased. Thandai, which is in style in North India, reached the market throughout Holi final yr and was an enormous success,” says Vikas.

The three-year outdated firm has 36 kinds of candies available in the market and is planning to widen the buyer base of the model with 100 varieties this yr.