Model gives up catwalk to become vegan chocolatier
Aformer fashion model has described how she gave up the photographic studio to set up her own business making vegan chocolates in west Wales.
Chloe Valentine Whittock was tired of the constant travelling between Cardiff and London and decided she wanted to start a new life in Pembrokeshire, where she had lived with her mother from the age of 13.
“I have always been a foodie and loved experimenting with baking and chocolate, and had been thinking about setting up my own business for some time and wanted to work from home,” she said.
In 2015 Ms Whittock won the freefrom division in the National Cupcake Championships.
One of the prizes was a chocolatier’s course and, after completing it, she went home and started experimenting with chocolate.
“I have a gluten intolerance as well as not eating dairy, so I decided to try and produce a dairy-free, vegan and gluten-free chocolate. This had to taste as good as ‘normal dairy’ chocolate as I wanted everyone to enjoy it, not just vegans or people with dairy or gluten allergies,” she said.
After much recipe testing and trying out different flavour and chocolate percentages, she was satisfied she had created something that tastes different to the dairy-free chocolate, which can often have a high cocoa percentage and taste like darker chocolate, which is not to everyone’s taste.
Before starting her business, So Sweet Couture, last year Ms Whittock had no previous experience in chocolate making.
“I was a very keen baker and used chocolate in many recipes and I knew how to temper chocolate by hand, but the chocolatier’s course gave me more knowledge,” she said.
Ms Whittock began by making the chocolates in the kitchen of the farmhouse that belongs to her mother, a retired veterinary nurse.
She has taught herself to cook and bake through her passion for food, although she adds: “I’ve been told that my great grandmother was an amazing cook and family often tell me that I remind them of her.”
She grew up surrounded by animals – they currently have horses, a dog and two rabbits, and she also has a small allotment on which she grows a variety of fruit and veg.
It’s important to her that all the chocolate So Sweet Couture produces is dairy-free, vegan, and gluten-free.
“I have been vegetarian for as long as I can remember and turned vegan about three years ago,” she said.
“I became vegan because I have a real passion and love for all animals. After becoming more aware of the dairy industry and the dairy farming practices I felt it was something I wanted to avoid contributing to and with the abundance of dairy-free alternatives starting to appear more and more on supermarket shelves it was a very easy to choose a plantbased diet.”
The ‘milk’ chocolate alternative is 47% cocoa and So Sweet Couture also makes a dairy-free alternative to white chocolate.
Altogether the company produces ten varieties of chocolate bar and four children’s bars. They are currently working on three new flavours to be launched in the new year.
Ms Whittock and her team of parttime helpers handmake and wrap around 500 chocolate bars a week and produce around the same number of chocolate gifts. At busy times such as Christmas, Valentines Day and Easter production can triple.
Production has moved into a purpose-built unit with a commercial kitchen, and they are renovating one of the larger barns on the farm for further expansion.
All the chocolate is Fairtrade and comes from the Dominican Republic. The bars contain no additives or preservatives.
Although it’s vegan and glutenfree, Ms Whittock insists So Sweet Couture’s chocolate is aimed at “everyone or anyone who loves chocolate”.
She added: “We have a few trade secrets that we could not possibly tell you! But I certainly think our chocolate tastes better, it has a cleaner taste.
“Some milk chocolates can leave your mouth feeling a bit ‘gloopy’ or feeling like you need a drink straight after eating, but our chocolate leaves a fresher taste, not heavy or sickly which, alongside being a kinder chocolate, is a bonus.”
At the moment So Sweet Couture’s sales are through its website and a number of independent stores, both locally and around the UK.
Ms Whittock hopes that next year will see its chocolate available in “many more” shops and has plans to ramp up production once the barn renovation is complete.
Right now though she’s geared up for a hectic few weeks before Christmas and is hoping that, with the growing interest in veganism, many more people will try out her chocolates this season.