2024 Chocolate Dreams Finalists Announced

Imaginations have run wild for nine aspiring chocolate makers selected by the NZ public as finalists in Wellington Chocolate Factory’s 2024 Chocolate Dreams competition.

Creations including Cashew Later, Gingerberry Explosion, Carnival, Afternoon Tea, and The Zest Chocolate Ever! have made it to the next stage of judging after thousands of public votes picked the top three entries across the Junior, Teen, and Open categories. 

The 2024 Chocolate Dreams finalists are:

Junior category (5 - 12 years)

• Cashew Later (cashews, sea salt and milk chocolate) - Amelia Brennan
• Gingerberry Explosion (strawberries, gingerbread and milk chocolate) - Neveah Wendt
• Pavluva (kiwifruit, strawberries, meringue) - Maddie Mackie

Teen category (13 - 17 years)

• Carnival (salted caramel fudge, sweet popcorn, rainbow sprinkles) - Amelia Simpson
• Honeycomb (candied lemon, honeycomb) - Emily Batty
• Trio Bliss Dark Chocolate (dark chocolate, almonds, tart berries) - Cayden Pistorious

Open category (18 and over)

• Afternoon tea (early grey tea, shortbread chunks) - Ezra Whittaker
• Spiced apricot (apricot jam, cardamom, cinnamon, star anise, milk chocolate) - Hannah Pett
• The Zest Chocolate Ever! (candied lemon zest, lemon candy, milk chocolate) - Kevin Stevens.

Gabe Davidson, co-founder of Wellington Chocolate Factory, says he’s blown away by the creativity and imagination in each of this year's finalists' entries. 

“We’ve had some delightful flavour ideas come through, especially with our junior category, which is super impressive; there are a lot of young aspiring foodies in Aotearoa! Across our Teen and Open categories, some flavours have even taken our chocolate experts by surprise; we’re going to have a great time sampling these bars over the coming days,” he says.

Each finalist’s bar will be made for judging at WCF on August 29, 2024. The panel includes Gabe Davidson and Tania Rodger (Wētā Workshop CEO), Lucy Corry (writer, cook and journalist) and Kalliana Kong (foodie and founder of Instagram account Wellingnoms). 

Gabe Davidson says they’ll assess each finalist’s bar against several categories.

“We want to see how well the flavours come together - how does it taste and look? How does the bar’s wrapper relate to the flavour? Will people buy it? This is the same process we go through when we develop a new bar for sale at WCF to ensure it ticks all the boxes, and we want to put all of our finalists through their paces,” he says.

There will be one winner per category, from which the Supreme Winner will be crowned. Each category winner will win two return airfares to Wellington, one night's accommodation, tickets for experiences at WCF, Weta, Zealandia, Cable Car and Space Place for two and one year's worth of WCF chocolate. The Supreme Winner will become Willy Wonka for a day and handmake 50 of their bars to take home, with another 450 bars of the winning flavour sold at WCF. 

Chocolate Dreams 2024 has been made possible by the generous support of Wētā Workshop, Wellington Cable Car, Zealandia, and Space Place.  For more information, visit chocolatedreams.co.nz.

About Wellington Chocolate Factory

Small but mighty with a dream of creating a better-tasting world, Wellington Chocolate Factory makes some of the world’s highest-quality, ethical chocolate, guaranteed to take you on a taste adventure from the first bite. Working to ensure a sweeter future for those growing their amazing cocoa beans, they are New Zealand’s original bean-to-bar chocolate maker. Based in Eva Street Wellington, they offer tours choc-full of chocolate goodness and the chance to watch the bean-to-bar magic happen at their delicious factory. To find out more, visit www.wcf.co.nz

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