DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/20 June) – Five-year old homegrown Malagos Chocolate snatched two bronzes at the 2017 Academy of Chocolate in London for its sweetened dark chocolates only two weeks after it won silver in the same competition for its 100% unsweetened dark chocolate under drinking category last June 5.
The Puentespina family-owned chocolate firm made the announcement on Tuesday.
Malagos Chocolate’s 65% dark chocolates and 72% dark chocolates shared the bronze with eight other premium chocolate brands produced in seven different countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
The other winners of bronze are Amma Chocolate’s Amma Chocolate 75% (Brazil), Menakao 100% (Madagascar), One/One Cacao-Mahogany Hall 71% (Jamaica), St. Vincent Cocoa Company’s Vincentian Chocolate (Saint Vincent and Grenadines), Belvie Chocolate’s Belvie Tien Giang 70% and Bdelvie Hao Mac 80% (Vietnam), Krakakoa 70% single origin Sedayu (Indonesia), and T. Brothers’s t.brothers dark chocolate Ba Ria 70% (Vietnam).
Last June 5, Malagos Chocolate bagged its second silver for its single-origin unsweetened chocolate, making it the sole Asian country to win such an award for this year.
The two bronzes brought to seven Malagos’ major international awards. The Academy of Chocolate awarded the company silver under Drinking Chocolate category for its unsweetened chocolate in 2016 and bronze under Best Unflavored Drinking Chocolate in April 2015.
The Great Taste Awards in London gave two out of three stars to Malagos unsweetened chocolate in 2016.
Malagos Dark Chocolate won a silver during the World Drinking Chocolate Competition organized by the International Chocolate Awards in October 2015 in Hannover, Germany.
The Academy of Chocolate, a London-based group comprising various professionals in the industry, holds independent competitions to give recognition to excellence in fine chocolate-making.
It aims to raise appreciation for fine chocolates as well as promote transparency in the sourcing of prime ingredient for chocolates, the cocoa bean.
The Puentespina family went into chocolate business in 2012, with premium single-origin cocoa liquor as its first product until it branched out to Malagos 65%, 72%, and 85% Dark Chocolates, and Malagos Roasted Cocoa Nibs.
Its chocolates are exported to Japan, Thailand, Singapore, London, Australia, New York and the United States. (Antonio L. Colina IV/MindaNews)
