Malagos Chocolate wins silver, bronze awards in London

DAVAO CITY – It’s a back-to-back win for homegrown Malagos Chocolate when it won two bronze awards for its sweetened dark chocolate bars at the 2017 Academy of Chocolate in London.

In the same competition last June 5, it won silver for its 100 percent unsweetened dark chocolate under a drinking category, the only Asian company to do so.

The five-year old chocolate firm owned by the Puentespina family based in Calinan District, Davao City made the announcement Tuesday immediately after the results of the competition were released.

The Malagos Chocolate’s 62 percent dark chocolates and 72 percent dark chocolates shared the bronze awards with eight other premium chocolate brands produced in seven different countries, of which three are in Southeast Asia – Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

Other bronze winners include Amma Chocolate’s Amma Chocolate 75 percent (Brazil), Menakao 100 percent (Madagascar), One/One Cacao-

Hall 71 percent (Jamaica), St. Vincent Cocoa Company’s Vincentian Chocolate (Saint Vincent and Grenadines), Belvie Chocolate’s Belvie Tien Giang 70 percent and Belvie Hao Mac 80 percent (Vietnam), Krakakoa 70 percent single origin Sedayu (Indonesia), and T. Brothers’s dark chocolate Ba Ria 70 percent (Vietnam). Seven international awards The latest bronze awards bring 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 Unflavoured Drinking Chocolate in April 2015. The Great Taste Awards in London gave two out of three stars to Malagos unsweetened chocolate in 2016 and silver for the Malagos Dark Chocolate during 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 competition to give recognition to excellence in fine chocolate-making.

It is aimed at raising appreciation for fine chocolates as well as promote transparency in the sourcing of the 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 percent, 72 percent, and 85 percent Dark Chocolates, and Malagos Roasted Cocoa Nibs.