What got you interested in chocolate?

I have always been fascinated by the art of chocolate making so after trying a few truffle recipes, I decided I wanted to know more and enrolled on my very first course. YouTube and recipe books only taught me so much and there were questions I had that online tutorials couldn’t answer.
About 3 years ago when I was just playing around with some recipes.
Not brilliant, hence the reason for enrolling on a course!
My ingredients are sourced as locally as possible. For example, I use a terrific vanilla paste that it manufactured locally from the ‘Little Pod Vanilla Company’. My chocolate is sourced from suppliers who, in turn, source an array of ethically produced couverture chocolate. They are mindful of the carbon footprint and all of the chocolate is fair trade!
I won the Runner Up prize for best new business at the Exmouth Chamber of Commerce business awards. The parties I run are unique and equally fabulous in their own right with many reviews from parents. The chocolate I use is very delicious and I only like to use natural ingredients.
My parties are by far my best selling product!
To increase my party areas and recruit party chocolatiers to run the parties in other areas. To be the No 1 chocolate party supplier throughout the south west.
Milk chocolate all the way, followed by dark.
If you would like to talk to Ali about booking a children’s chocolate party, she will be at the Exeter Chocolate Festival running the chocolate lollipop decoration station!
I love the fact that chocolate pizzas are what I call ‘a happy product’, they always make people smile. After being given the opportunity to take over The Chocolate Pizza Company from the previous owner, a good friend of mine, I jumped at the chance of a new challenge and the thought of playing with chocolate all day was an exciting prospect. So I made the change from teaching to running my own business in order to create a better work/life balance.
The transition in the early days was a steep learning curve, and with the guidance of my friend I made my first chocolate pizza in April 2014. The art of tempering is not an easy one to grasp quickly but with a great tutor and lots of practice, I was improving. The family enjoyed lots of rejects in the early stages. Since then I have developed my skills and have three different sized tempering machines which help me to produce the large amounts needed, all in my specially built chocolate workshop.
Once I had grasped making chocolate pizzas, I decided to become more adventurous and started experimenting with flavoured bars and shards which I sold at events. It was at one of these events that I was approached to retail my bars and shards at a local garden centre. I am proud to say that three years on, that retailer still stocks my chocolate and I have acquired several more outlets since.
I entered my Dark Chocolate Raspberry Shards for the Taste of the West awards this year and was very pleased to receive a Silver award. Apart from that I get a great deal of pleasure form the compliments I receive from customers when they have received a chocolate pizza in the post, and also listening to positive comments when they taste my flavours at events etc.
When it comes to the chocolate pizzas, my ‘Totally Stuffed’ is the most popular but I have recently launched a ‘Big Breakfast’ Chocolate Pizza which is hot on its tails.
I hope that my business continues to thrive and that I can gain more retail outlets over time, whilst still enjoying making chocolate and get excited about our new creations and flavours.
The Chocolate Pizza Company is about providing something a little bit different whether it be an unusual gift in the form of a chocolate pizza, or a delicious unusual chocolate flavour combination. I am proud to place ‘Made in Devon’ on my products and being a sole business venture love the fact that I am the contact throughout the process, therefore providing a great personal service.
My personal statement however would be ‘Do what makes you happy and live life for today’. I feel this reflects in my business too.
Oh so much to choose from! I am a sucker for my Salted Caramel Honeycomb, Cornish 71% Sea Salt Shards and White Chocolate Raspberry Bars, so it is clear that I like all types of chocolate. I do find that I eat more dark chocolate nowadays though. However, my guilty pleasure when stopping at the petrol station is to grab a Chunky Kit Kat!
You will be able to get your hands on Annie’s Chocolate Pizzas and other products at the Exeter Chocolate Festival, but if you can’t wait until then you can buy online by clicking here!
We first started making peanut butter around 3.5 years ago after we were inspired on a trip to New Zealand in a camper van called Freda.
The first attempts were not great! I blew up the first two food processors that I had, but then we invested in some better kit and we got much better results.
Our peanuts are high oleic from Argentina. We’ve learned a lot about peanuts, and in our opinion these are simply the best. Everything we add is organic with the exception of Chipotle chillies and Cornish Sea Salt.
Since we started using these peanuts we’ve received some fabulous awards. Three Golds, two Silvers and a Commended from Taste of the West and a wonderful two Gold stars for our Coconut flavour from the Great Taste awards.
Our best seller has always been the Cornish Sea Salt flavour – it’s the simplest of them all – just peanuts and sea salt, nothing else. Incidentally, our Chocolate flavour peanut butter has been having a little rest but we will be launching our Chocolate Orange flavour just in time for the Exeter Chocolate Festival!
You will be able to buy Freda’s peanut butter, handmade in Cornwall, at the Exeter Chocolate Festival. See you there!
I didn’t use to like the pink and white marshmallows in the shop. So, I thought there was no chance I would eat marshmallows when making them. Once perfected, I now have to taste every single batch of Grown Up Marshmallows!
I first made marshmallows as a treat for my students in the classroom who made a significant effort.
My first attempt was poles apart from the alchemy that developed Grown Up Marshmallows.
My ingredients are either home grown organically or ethically sourced as locally as possible to consider my green food miles.
I am particularly proud of HRH The Duchess of Cornwall’s reaction when she sampled my Grown Up Marshmallows and exclaimed. ‘Oh those are delicious!’
Summer Fruit and Sicilian Lemon are probably my best selling marshmallows. It’s so difficult to call when everyone has their favourite. Best buy our new Variety box I say, which will be launched at the Exeter Chocolate Festival!
I am most proud of making it this far. It’s been a struggle at times, but I have stuck by my ethics and philosophy of the company that tries to act ‘out of consideration for the planet’ throughout production, provenance or biodegradable packaging.
My ambitions for the future are to perfect the Vegan Marshmallows. I have produced a great tasting vegan marshmallow, but simply cannot produce it on a commercial scale as yet… but I will!
Grown Up Marshmallows mission statement is ‘…out of consideration for the planet.’ The environment and minimising my impact upon it has been my passion ever since I can remember. I certainly wasn’t going to abandon that when developing my product.
My favourite Grown Up Marshmallow is Dipped Chocolate. All that soft vanilla marshmallow dipped in 72% Fair Trade Chocolate is just… so yum!
You can buy Janet’s delicious marshmallows at the Exeter Chocolate Festival! But if you can’t wait until then to get your hands on them, you can buy online by clicking here.