The life of a flavour creator for confectionary brands is not as easy as one might think, with plenty of delicious food already out there you really have to push boundaries. That’s exactly what the chocolatiers at Tony’s Chocolonely do, push the boundaries of flavour.
Sometimes these flavours don’t quite work out and the creators must say goodbye to their weird and wonderful chocolate bars. Chocolatier for Tony’s, Bas Klarenbeek, shared some of the crazier creations ditched by the company.
He told the Daily Record: “If you start you can do a chocolate workshop so you can create your own flavour and people literally made bacon and eggs inside their chocolate bar. ” While this has not made it to market, Bas shared one of his own favourite flavour inventions.
Read more: The surprisingly delicious Ben & Jerry's flavour that will never be sold
“The weirdest combination I made in chocolate was with pine needles and it was, to be honest, extremely delicious,” Bas, nicknamed Count Chocula, said. Despite the taste, Tony’s decided the flavour would not be sold as it wasn't marketable.
Some combinations can surprise even their creators, Bas added: “Pine Needles is not something that people really think like oh, that will be amazing, but the flavour is amazing.” But pine needles didn’t make the cut, he explained: “On a more commercial level, I think people would buy for one time like ‘oh, this this is strange’ or ‘this is something I’ve never seen before’ and if you eat it then it's like okay, it's for one time. It's enough.”
Some flavours are off limits to Tony's due to their commitment to making everything open chain and fairtrade, others do make it to market but have to be ditched for production reasons. Such as Tony’s popcorn chocolate bar, which Bas said was dropped from the range due to popcorn supplier issues.
“The supplier of the popcorn can't deliver the popcorn that we use at that time,” said the chocolatier, “So that was a popcorn that has a coating so we could use it. That would be amazing if we can make that again because popcorn in chocolate is still delicious.”
Tony’s, like their latest collaborator Ben & Jerry’s, have a flavour graveyard known as the Chocolate Museum where they keep track of all the flavours no longer in circulation or that didn’t make it to the public.
But when it comes to inventive confectionery, Tony’s isn’t afraid to push the limits of what a chocolate bar can be. Their Ben & Jerry’s collaboration bars, launching in early 2023, has a white strawberry cheesecake flavour which was inspired by the ice cream manufacturer’s own flavours.
Bas believes that chocolate is not just about the taste but the overall texture and feeling the bar gives you. This bar brings the creaminess of cheesecake to life in a chocolate bar, Bas said: “You have to take the concept and translate it into all the technical and flavour profiles and make out of that a tasty chocolate bar.”
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