Willie’s Chocolate Revolution ep 3 – an expert’s opinion

Award winning chocolatier, Paul A. Young, contemplates the challenges and conquests of Willie Harcourt-Cooze’s show, Willie’s Chocolate Revolution

The final chapter in Willie’s quest begins with so many problems to juggle, mistakes to make right and ambitions to fulfill. Will Willie pull it all off? Will he reach his ultimate goal of bean to bar deliciousness?

With Willie still clearly frustrated that his fine quality beans were shipped to Japan, he had to find another source of equally superior beans to make the hundreds of thousands of bars required to stock the supermarket shelves.

Inspiration and guidance came when Willie visited a friend and small chocolate producer for help and guidance. Once back in Venezuela, we again see Willie smiling and relaxed surrounded by what started this quest cocoa trees, farmers and producers – and in return for his friend’s advice, Willie brings a set of professional chocolate moulds which are very expensive and hard to find in Vezenuela or other cocoa producing countries (as I found out last year when I visited Ecuador). There are thousands of acres of cocoa trees and tones upon tones of cocoa beans but little professional equipment for any budding chocolatier. A very thoughtful gift from Willie which will be treasured by his friend.

Willie decides to create two bars not three as originally planned, due to the cocoa bean issues, Rio Caraibe and Peruvian.

One of the best ways to see how your new products are accepted is to either take part in a huge product sampling session or to join another event where your product will be used as part of a menu – and Willie’s chocolate is being used by Rhubarb Caterers at the prestigious Cartier polo event. A very luxurious chocolate dessert is created and served to many hundreds of guests. We fail to see how it is received, however, and I would have liked to see more comments from the guests on the flavours and tastes of Willie’s chocolate.

The first recipe Willie chooses to make for us is a simple chocolate biscuit filled with his chocolate and to be enjoyed by his 10 taste testers. I can feel his frustrations as this is his final attempt in getting milk chocolate addicts to like dark chocolate.

One of the most important aspects of launching a new product is how it will look on shelf, how will it feel in hand and will it catch the eye? So Willie enroles a design team to create the ultimate packaging. And with Willie’s wrapping machine still broken and beyond repair, the design team come up with a chocolate bar box, where the foil hand wrapped bar will sit. The finished box is a combination of eccentric style, precious feel and of course, stylish.

This is all well and good, but now there’s the challenge of selling his chocolate to retail buyers to secure some orders. From experience, this is make or break time and one needs to impress with a clean and concise presentation and, of course, your product at its best.

Waitrose buyer, Mathew Jones, was impressed and clearly identified the different characteristics between the two bars. The result was equally impressive with some huge orders being placed. Willie is now really in business, with the problem of how to wrap and pack thousands of chocolate bars in time to deliver to Waitrose.

In the meantime we saw a very good friend of mine, Roger Pizey (Marco Pierre White’s executive pastry chef), create a chocolate soufflé with chocolate sauce to be tasted by Marco in Willie’s presence. Marco did indeed reel over the tastes and flavours giving Willie the approval I think he needed.

It’s a wrap
The heat is on and we see Willie at his most stressed and anxious as he has had to recruit temporary staff to hand wrap each and every bar. A brief demonstration to the fleet and a practice session to perfect the art (believe me, hand wrapping is an art and not always easy for everyone to master!). The result is, of course, not a good one for Willie.

The production begins and disaster hits as the first batch appears from the cooling tunnel tempered incorrectly. You’ve guessed it they have to start again while the problems are solved and Tania allocates jobs to the hired help. Once in full swing the bars get wrapped and packed ready to hit the high street.

So did his 10 chocoholics like his chocolate? Seven out of 10 in a blind tasting preferred Willie’s chocolate and the other three were and would never be dark chocolate lovers. Many were converted and are now hardened dark chocolate lovers, which thrills Willie.

With Willie’s bars now shown on shelf he has reached his ultimate goal, bean to bar. Is this the end? Not at all this is just the beginning.

It really has been a roller coaster of a ride for Willie but I stand strong in saying this: He is not alone in his quest. We and many other chocolatiers are doing the very same things, just in our own individual ways.

Catch up on the rest of Willie’s Chocolate Revolution

Try Willie’s recipes

Find all stockists of Willie’s chocolate here

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