PRESS RELEASE

Chippenham, Wiltshire, UK

October 9th 2008 – Immediate Release

Lick the Spoon Launches The “Wonders of the West” Award winning handmade Chocolate Collection!

Award Winning Wiltshire Chocolatier Lick the Spoon have launched a new handmade regional chocolate collection titled – The “Wonders of the West”. The collection features chocolate recipes and ingredients inspired by the “West Country”, from the tip of the Cornish peninsula, though the fruit farms of Devon and apple orchards of Somerset, to the gardens of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.

Husband and wife team Matthew and Diana Short explained the collection had it’s origins a couple of years earlier whilst walking in Leigh Woods, near Bristol. “It was a beautiful Autumnal day and we were surrounded by wild cob nut trees” explained Diana, “we thought it be wonderful to create a praline using our indigenous species rather than use the imported hazelnuts used by most chocolatiers”. The collection soon developed and featured specialities such as the Cornish Sea Salt praline, Somerset cider apple brandy and an elderflower liqueur from Bramley & Gage whom they had met at the 2007 Taste of the West awards. “Awards presenter Michael Caines MBE gave an impassioned speech of his love for the provenance of the South-West” described Matthew, “From that moment we knew that a regional chocolate collection would be radically new, but we just had to do it!”.

Finding chocolate with a South West provenace proved more difficult, but inspiration finally came in the form of the entrepreneurial Willie Harcout-Cooze. His Devon produced Venzuelan Black chocolate is used in Lick the Spoon’s “Wonky Truffle”. The unique handmade chocolate collection features the finest couvertures from Venzuela, Madagascar, Ecuador and Saint Domingue. For their ganaches Lick the Spoon use the rich , organic Jersey cream from Ivy House farm Bressington, sourced from their local farm shop at Allington. The collection has already won a number of awards including a gold in the 2008 Taste of the West awards. The collection also saw Lick the Spoon named as one the UK’s 18 Best Small Food producers at the 2008 “Made in Britain awards”.

Lick the Spoon use traditional artisan techniques to produce their chocolates. “All of our chocolate is hand tempered on marble”, described Diana, “every chocolate we make is handmade with skill and passion, each couverture has it’s unique flavour profile which we carefully match to our original recipes”.

The “Wonders of the West” chocolate collection can be bought from their website or from select retail outlets throughout the South-West.

“Business has been so good that despite the credit crunch we’re expanding ”, says Diana…, “once people try our chocolate collections they keep coming back!”

www.lickthespoon.co.uk