Fed up with Easter eggs, then how about a chocolate welly or giant cupcake? MAXINE GORDON visits a York chocolatier making treats with a twist.

IF you are looking for unusual gift ideas for Easter, check out Choc Affair from York. You won’t find an Easter egg among its extensive range of products. But what you will find are treats galore guaranteed to bring a smile and create a talking point.

How about a giant chocolate welly in wickedly creamy Belgian milk chocolate?

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Or an oversized cupcake, featuring a milk-chocolate ‘case’, white chocolate ‘sponge’, strawberry chocolate ‘icing’ and two bags of sweets tucked inside.

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There are white-chocolate bunny lollies and, new for 2015, farmyard favourites such as cows and sheep, perfect for animal lovers with a sweet tooth.

Another innovation is the launch of the 750g chocolate bar. It’s as long as your arm and would take an army of chocoholics to demolish (definitely one for sharing).

The company, which manufactures its wares from a new base off James Street, York, is also branching out into boiled sweets. Easter offerings include a choice of three flavours: peach and apricot; raspberry and rose and orange and geranium – all retro-presented in mini milk bottles.

 

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These flavours are also being added to an already extensive chocolate bar range – alongside a new rhubarb bar – taking the choice of flavours to 18.

In another extension, the company is bringing out a collection of single-origin bars for chocolate connoisseurs, from cocoa estates in Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia.

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Choc Affair founder Linda Barrie said: “There will be a choice of two milk and two dark single-origin bars, which means the cocoa comes from one plantation or one particular area in a country.”

Linda compared the chocolate to wine, where the end product takes on the characteristics and flavours of the land in which the grape is grown. “You get a different profile in the cocoa bean depending upon where it is from,” she says.

The company prides itself on its ethical credentials. It was a Fair Trade producer until this year when it switched its focus to financially supporting a cocoa co-op directly in Colombia, helping 60 families.

The business has come a long way from its origins back in 2006. Linda began with only one product – a hot chocolate drink stick, literally a piece of chocolate on a stick, designed to be stirred into hot milk for a luxury hot chocolate. She made them in her kitchen at the family home in Naburn, just outside York. As sales took off and product lines expanded, she moved production into her garage, then into a neighbouring building, before opening the new manufacturing HQ in the city.

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Behind the scenes at Choc Affair’s chocolate factory off James Street in York

A staff of 19 turn out around 2,000 items a day, getting through a tonne of chocolate a week. Besides the Choc Affair range, the plant makes chocolate for other clients including Kew Gardens, the Tate art gallery in London and York’s Chocolate Story.

Today, Choc Affair goodies are stocked across the UK and locally at Fenwick and a range of farm shops as well as online.

Building a business in a recession has had its own challenges, says Linda. Part of the company’s success, she believes, is its commitment to innovation. Linda said: “There is an expectation among our retailers that we are going to come up with the next big idea.”

She is also proud to be contributing to York’s reputation as a city of chocolate. She said: “It is exciting to be the next generation of chocolate manufacturers in York. It is lovely that the heritage carries on.”

• Find out more at choc-affair.com

• Twitter: @MaxineYGordon