The Vegan Society Aotearoa is delighted to anounce the second annual Vegan Chocolate Awards. There are so many Kiwi made vegan chocolates available throughout New Zealand, that we felt it was time to offer these awards, to showcase the excellence to be found in our local chocolatiers.

Vegan chocolate is no longer just dark chocolate, there are many plant milk chocolates, there are inclusions, flavoured bon bons and truffles. Many of our favourite brands of drinking chocolate are “accidentally” vegan.

The awards have been created to allow both local and imported brands to show off the delights and tastiness of vegan chocolate. There are 8 categories in our awards, including the Supreme Award, which will be given to the overall winner, the one chocolate that all the judges feel is simply the best!

The judging will take place Monday 24th April from 9am til noon, at Khu Khu Eatery at 171A Ponsonby Road, Ponsonby, Auckland.

Our judges have been confirmed as Luke Owen Smith, a regular judge at the NZ Chocolate Awards, President of the NZ Chef Association, Jasbir (Jazz) Kaur, Food and Beverage industry judge Aaron Pucci, Chris Kinnell, local entrepreneur, restauranteur and experienced Awards host, Volker Maracek is an international Executive Chef with an impressive pedigree of running restaurants in top hotels and a very warm welcome to our Special Guest Judge, Floris Niu, all the way from Samoa, she is the founder of Ms Sunshine Organic Farms and operates a cacao agritourism experience.

Award categories are:

• Dark Chocolate bars
• Milk Chocolate bars (plant milk only)
• Chocolate Bars; flavoured/ inclusions
• Filled Chocolate Bon Bons and Truffles
• Caramels
• Bean to Bar; dark/milk/subs/flavoured
• Drinking Chocolate
• Supreme

Bean to Bar is a relevantly new term to the chocolate world, first used in 2005, to describe the process of making micro-batches of chocolate, from the cocoa bean, all the way through to the bar itself. Craft companies were able to create a niche market in this way, with total control over all the processes, grinding beans, roasting etc, to the actual making of the bar. We are excited to see the entries for this category, as it is a great sustainable option.

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