Canberra's chocolatiers and bakeries have gone into overdrive to keep up with a surge of shoppers seeking locally made goods for the Easter weekend.
The demand for quality chocolate ahead of the holiday has been "never ending", the owner of Braddon chocolate shop Enigma said.
"We've always found that Canberra has this idea of wanting to support local, support small businesses as well," Stuart Strutt-Shotton said.
"It's grown a lot more over the recent years where there's been lot more of a push forward as well."
Mr Strutt-Shotton, a qualified chef, started the business at home in 2015.
He said interest in ethically-sourced cocoa was also driving spending on locally-made chocolate.
"I think there's more and more [interest] now, with what's been going on recently with things like traceability and problems like child labour in the cocoa industry."
The cocoa used for Enigma's creations comes from Valrhona, a brand which is transparent about its sourcing, Mr Strutt-Shotton said.
The business had been buffered through the pandemic by the nature of their product, with customers continuing to buy and gift chocolate over the last two years.
"Chocolate being a product that is a bit of a comfort food for a lot of people, either for themselves or buying it for friends and family and sending it over just to kind of make them know that they have been thought of," he said. "Demand has always been there."
Watson cafe The Knox has been gearing up for sales of hundreds of hot cross buns over the Easter long weekend, with staff starting as early as 3am.
The bakery expected to see a spike in demand from Thursday and will be producing 1200 traditional hot cross buns a day, 800 of their chocolate variants, general manager Maddy Kreyl said.
"The hospitality industry at the moment is just so unpredictable, we're obviously hoping for a really busy weekend, but you just don't know," Ms Kreyl said, ahead of the long weekend.
"Normally Easter is our busiest weekend of the year."
She said despite the uncertainty lingering from the coronavirus pandemic, staff at the business' cafe and bakery were eager to greet customers face-to-face.
"That's why we all do what we do, because we love connecting with the local community and seeing everybody," she said.
Despite a competitive hot cross bun market in Canberra, support from the Watson community has been felt strongly by the bakery.
"There's amazing hot cross buns throughout Canberra, and so many places do them differently," Ms Kreyl said.
"[But] we are 100 per cent backed by the local Watson community."
