“Deeply Personal”: The Aussie Chocolatiers Going Beyond Milk and Dark Chocolate

A funeral home isn’t an obvious place to find equipment when you’re starting a chocolate business. But in 2013, when Fiona Harrison needed a slab for cooling her melted bars, a funeral parlour worker sourced exactly what she wanted: a granite piece from Eugowra in Central West New South Wales, on Wiradjuri Country.

Over the years, the founder of Chocolate On Purpose has upgraded to a proper stone bench for her blocks of cocoa, but that old granite slab was significant to her, particularly as a Wiradjuri woman. After all, she started her business as a way to showcase her Indigenous heritage, flavouring bars with Illawarra plum (daalgaal), finger lime (gulalung), muntrie berries (ngurp) and other native ingredients. “I’m going to use bush foods because my ancestors have been using that for over 60,000 years,” she tells Broadsheet.

There’s a multipurpose power in infusing dark chocolate with the floral note of rosella and the fiery bite of mountain pepperberry, or sprinkling riberries through milkier blocks. Harrison sees it as “contributing to reconciliation”, because it introduces Indigenous ingredients to Australians unfamiliar with native foods and their many cultural uses (the pulp of riberries, for instance, was applied as a remedy for ear infections).

“[I’m] using storytelling through chocolate to share information that could deepen respect for our traditional ways,” she says. For Easter, she’s harmonising the bold notes of ooray (Davidson’s plum) with sweeter, creamier white chocolate and tapping into the clove and cinnamon-like flavours of riberries for her milk choc bar.

Chocolate On Purpose buys native raspberries and other ingredients from First Nations businesses (Harrison says there’s less than two per cent representation by Indigenous people in the supply chain) and her labels highlight the traditional names for her ingredients and their health properties. Her Walking On Country Bar, which resembles footprints on the landscape, has personal resonance, because it showcases quandong, also known as native peach. “My granddad used to take me out collecting quandong when I was a very young child,” she says. “I like to think that you can see our footprints in that bar.”

Adelaide chocolatier Alex Crawford – aka The Sugar Man – celebrates his family via blocks of Marmalade Croissant chocolate, powered by his grandparents’ 68-year-old orange tree. “My grandmother – 94 years old and still kicking goals – has never been fond of marmalade due to the chunky bitter peel, but would make it for my grandfather, who loved it on toast or a spoonful as a simple treat after dinner,” he says. “The oranges from her tree aren’t sweet, they’re quite sour – almost a cross between a lemon and an orange. Pairing it with our house-made croissants and gorgeous Valrhona milk chocolate just made sense.”

It plays into The Sugar Man’s affinity for nostalgic flavours and hyperlocal produce. Crawford believes chocolate is an effective way to showcase your identity and passions. “Because you can connect very quickly with people,” says Crawford, who sees the handcrafted nature of chocolate-making as being “deeply personal”.

“The barrier for introduction and connection is lowered already by a person’s sweet tooth.”

That’s also true for Santiago Cuyugan of Melbourne’s Mame Cocoa: the business is named for his first child’s nickname. When his wife Yukiyo was pregnant, they affectionately compared their baby’s bean-like presence to edamame. The three lines that comprise Mame Cocoa’s logo represent him, his wife and their baby.

“We have a second daughter now,” says the award-winning chef. “So we might end up adjusting some things.”

Cuyugan started Mame Cocoa as a one-off for a special event, but when the pandemic hit, the former Bibelot chef pivoted to selling Mame Cocoa online. Today, his chocolates can also be found interstate at various Asian supermarkets, as well as Hobart’s Kinoko Deli and Sydney’s Domo 39.

Cuyugan’s range is modelled after nama chocolate: a chilled creamy, ganache-like flavour epitomised by Japan’s Royce Chocolate. Royce fans returning to Australia (where the style is rare) have understandably sought out the chef’s creations. He started with classic Japanese flavours, such as matcha, hojicha and yuzu. But given his wife’s Japanese roots, Cuyugan will often turn to her for guidance. He’s also paid tribute to his own Filipino heritage, with a limited-edition box featuring calamansi, ube and mango flavours.

“To be honest, they did really well,” he says. But the chef chose not to offer them permanently. “I don’t know if I doubted myself or doubted the customer base.” But he still gets requests for the Filipino-inspired chocolates, so he’s thinking about resurfacing them as specials. “I think from a flavour perspective, the Australian public are becoming more open to different things.”