one of the company’s most famous and popular treats.
his brain on what it is like crafting masterpieces with a delicate and at times difficult product.
“We’ve been doing Agfest for several years, but we didn’t do it last year with date change, it was the first time I’ve had a chance to look at Agfest for a long time, because every time we are working there we’ve never had a chance,” Van Gerwen said. “I walked through the THA area and I thought it looked pretty good so we applied. [The event] is about branding first of all, just making sure people remember us but we’ve got a new range of packaging for our products so we’d like to show that. It’s also the launch of our chocolate snowballs for this year. Every winter we make chocolate snowballs and Agfest is always the launch day for that. That’s probably our second most popular product after our truffles. People look forward to every year, we clear Easter first obviously with our easter eggs and then we start the manufacturing of the chocolate snowballs, but we don’t launch them until Agfest.” Van Gerwen will also use Agfest to discuss and sign copies of his recently released book Chocolatier. He has been pleased with the response since it hit bookshelves in February, with people eager to pick
“When people buy chocolate and they take it to their kitchen they don’t know how to handle it because it’s a very temperamental product, so they’re always picking my brain on what’s the easiest way of working with chocolate so it doesn’t go white or doesn’t go hard or anything like that. That’s what the book is about as well. And then the different flavours, so what we are promoting is chocolate isn’t chocolate, a bit like wine, that different wines depends on the grapes they use. Chocolate is the same, so different varieties of cocoa make different chocolate. We often talk about that and let them taste the difference.” Outside the THA pavilion, there will again be a wide variety of attractions for the punters. Chairman Caine Evans said the committee were excited to have the event back in its traditional May timeslot, with an increase in exhibitors from last August also pleasing with more than 550 showcasing agriculture, hardware, homewares, lifestyle and services as well as plenty of food and drink providers. There will be an increase in the number of Agricultural dealers exhibiting this year with Agricultural machinery demonstrations also
23 Tasmanian Hospitality Review Feb/Mar Edition
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