Guernsey Press

First gold medal at ‘chocolate Oscars’ for taste expert Ben

CHOCOLATIER Ben Le Prevost has won a gold medal for the first time at the International Chocolate Awards, known as the ‘chocolate Oscars’, for his milk chocolate enrobed caramels with mandarin and star anise.

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Chocolatier Ben Le Prevost has won gold at the International Chocolate Awards. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 26466994)

Mr Le Prevost has won silver and bronze previously and was delighted with the result.

‘I’m really pleased about it, this particular milk chocolate caramel is something we’ve been working on and tweaking ever so slightly each time.

‘From time to time we get people coming in who have heard about the awards.

‘We had someone recently from America come into the shop and it was because they’d been given instructions to come here because they knew we had an international chocolate award.’

Mr Le Prevost has been working in the chocolate industry for the last nine years, and before that he was a pastry chef for 15.

His artisan chocolates are hand-crafted and painstakingly hand-painted, there are certainly no Dairy Milks or Mars bars in the shop.

The beans are bought from Madagascar, Peru and Trinidad, and turned into something mouth-watering.

It may seem like the dream job, but short shelf-lives can make it stressful at times.

With the ultimate accolade now under his belt, Mr Le Prevost was prepared to share the key to his delicious success.

‘I think it’s the fact that we don’t compromise, we don’t use pre-made fillings, we don’t cut corners, if we run out of something we don’t just use something cheaper and rubbish, we will wait until we get the right product in to put it back on the menu.

‘There’s a growing market of visitors who come to Guernsey who are interested in this type of product, and we get a lot of business from them buying online afterwards.

‘There’s also the corporate people and the locals who come in here, the market is equally balanced.’

Chocolate is susceptible to fashions, rose creams are out these days, and high cocoa percentages and surprising flavours are in.

‘As far as the International Chocolate Awards are concerned, they are always looking for more interesting chocolates, and there are growing trends coming out of Asia for different chocolates with much lighter fillings and much more unusual flavours.’