Okanagan College launches its own brands of chocolate
Pastry arts students will use chocolate in training, but college is also looking into retailing the products
Chocolate callettes. Chocolate s’mores. Chocolate bonbons. Chocolate tarts. Chocolate mousse. All made of cocoa from Tanzania, Mexico and Cuba for Okanagan College’s own brand of chocolate.
“Okanagan College is the only college outside of Europe to have its own brand of chocolate,” said culinary instructor Bernard Casavant.
“These chocolate recipes are trademarked, and it’s completely custom and absolutely exquisite chocolate for our students to use in their training.”
To show off the chocolate and recipes, the college held an information and tasting session Monday afternoon for media and invited guest from the hospitality sector.
“We’re still in the early stages of this, but besides students using it to create amazing products, we’re looking at retailing,” said pastry arts instructor Danny Capadouca.
“We’ll start by selling cooking chocolate, chocolate bars and pastries in our cafeteria and at our Infusions restaurant, and then will look to other retailers, and maybe other hotels, restaurants and wineries.”
The process of branding Okanagan College chocolate started 10 months ago when Casavant and Capadouca wanted to secure a supply of high-quality chocolate to best teach students and showcase their learning.
Capadouca started by going to Vancouver to meet Mark Pennington, regional sales manager for Western Canada for Cacao Barry, a chocolate company founded in 1842 in France.
Capadouca told Pennington the school was after quality and unique chocolate.
Last summer, Capadouca and Casavant travelled to France to spend three days at Cacao Barry’s Or Noir laboratories outside Paris to develop two customized chocolates.
Okanagan Noir is an intense and smooth dark chocolate with 69.8 per cent pure cocoa made from beans from Tanzania, Mexico and Cuba.
Kalamalka Karamel is a 45.1 per cent cocoa milk chocolate with a caramel and honey finish made from Tanzania beans.
“We went with beans from countries with small cocoa production because beans from small producers tend to result in better chocolate,” said Casavant.
“We also went with a higher fat content because it’s easier to work with in cooking and is tastier.”
The dark chocolate also has a higher acidity, which works well in recipes featuring Okanagan fruit.
The milk chocolate is incredibly versatile.
To start with, the college has taken delivery of 500 kilograms each of the Okanagan Noir and Kalamalka Karamel from Cacao Barry in callettes, which look like big chocolate chips.
It will order more and create a third brand of chocolate as it uses more in both culinary instruction and retail.
Revenues from any sales of the chocolate will go back into the college’s culinary programs to send students to France to tour, taste and learn at Cacao Barry’s Or Noir lab.
Because the Okanagan is wine country, Monday’s event also saw Sandhill and Conviction wineries pouring vintages to complement the chocolates.
Sandhill Small Lots silky smooth Merlot paired nicely with anything made of the Okanagan Noir, and a slightly off-dry Conviction Sovereign Opal matched the Kalamalka Karamel creations.