Eve Lamb
Castlemaine artisan chocolatiers, Cabosse and Feve, are enjoying the very sweet taste of success after scooping three prestigious awards at the recent International Chocolate Awards held in Hong Kong.
The judges blind-tested their samples among other top-shelf bean to bar chocolate from throughout Asia Pacific, resulting in the Castlemaine chocolatiers clinching a gold medal and a silver medal for their 100 per cent Solomon Islands Bean to Bar and a silver medal for their 70 per cent Peru Bean to Bar chocolates.
Both are organic vegan products made onsite at The Mill from scratch – that is from cacao bean to chocolate bar.
“It was really great,” said Cabosse and Feve chocolatier Freya Schellhorn who together with her husband Thomas Vandaele started the artisan enterprise just a few months before the COVID pandemic struck Australian shores.
“It’s really, really exciting,” Thomas says.
“These are the first awards that we’ve ever entered.
“Our chocolate was sent to Hong Kong and blind-tested and we know we were one of only three finalists from Australia to be selected.
“All the businesses that entered were bean to bar businesses. We import the bean and do all of the process on site.
“We’re really happy. We’ve got a good customer base now.
“We knew we were doing something right because we were still alive after COVID.”
Their business not only managed to survive that difficult time but used it to develop a website that’s now seeing them sell their tempting products Australia-wide, and now employs one full-time and one part-time staff member.
They’ve also gained a strong following of devoted chocolate fiends such that right now they’re even expanding their footprint at The Mill by building an additional larger production facility on site.
The additional facility will be about twice the size of their existing customer shopfront site at The Mill, which also includes production.
It will be situated in a different part of The Mill site and is expected to be operational in about a month’s time.
Thomas says the international wins are particularly gratifying as they indicate their chocolate appeals to a wider range of palates, beyond those of Aussies.
“To know other people around the world are liking our chocolate as well is very interesting for us,” he says.
“It gives us the confidence to enter more competitions.”
