Winner of the Hutt Chocolate Challenge SWEET AS!

Winner of the Hutt Chocolate Challenge SWEET AS!

After two weeks of fierce competition the inaugural winner of the SWEET AS Hutt Chocolate Challenge has been found.

Gotham café on Margaret Street, Lower Hutt took out the title with Tears of the Joker, a butterscotch hot chocolate creation one customer described as the “sweetest of the sweet”.

It was a closely fought battle between the 10 cafes taking part with less than 30 points separating first and second place.

Council’s CBD Development Manager Cyndi Christensen says the challenge was an opportunity to inspire local cafes to be creative and attract people to the Lower Hutt CBD to sample the results.

“All ten cafes reported an increase in customers with Gotham’s owner estimating a jump of more than 80 per cent in hot chocolate orders during the challenge compared with the two weeks prior.

“The challenge has been a fantastic success and a great way to warm up the CBD during winter. We collected more than 1000 official challenge entries but numbers reported by the cafés suggested we had three times that number take part.

“These results set the scene for round two and hot chocolate lovers should mark in their calendars the dates for next year, 15 July – 30 July 2016.

“We’re also working on plans for a summer challenge where cafes will be asked to create something COOL AS - think milkshakes, iced teas and frappes.”

One lucky participant (who chose not to be publically named) drawn randomly from all the entries took home a prize pack including vouchers from all the participating cafes, SHOTT syrups, a box of chocolate fish, commemorative mugs and a voucher for the upcoming ice rink in Dowse Square.

Two participants who chose to enter via selfie also won commemorative mugs.

Some of the stand-out comments received from customers were:

“Amazing! I compare this experience with reading the Harry Potter series…life changing. Please make it a permanent item on the menu!”

“Amazing hot chocolate, actually almost like a dessert. I`d travel here especially for this again. Friendly café, awesome hot chocolate.”

“I thoroughly enjoyed this competition and I’m sure the cafes did too. I went to so many cafes I had never been to before. Great way to showcase the awesome stuff Lower Hutt has to offer. Awesome work.”

ENDS

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