A family-run food producer which made its debut at the Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival in 2017 returns this year with a turnover of £500k-plus and a workforce of four.
Tosier Chocolate was founded by Deanna Tilston at Little Blakenham, near Ipswich, and is now a thriving family business employing husband, Jonathan, on sales and marketing and son and trained chef Émile.
They run a small-batch chocolate factory - sorting, cracking, winnowing, grinding and conching chocolate in 64kg batches - and are looking forward to returning to the Snape Maltings-based food festival this year.
"It's brilliant for us. It's great," said Deanna. "We have a business which is not front-facing so it's good to meet people."
Deanna launched her chocolate-making venture in 2016 after feeling inspired by European chocolate makers.
"I had lived in Europe for a number of years, on and off, and enjoyed tasting many different styles of chocolate. I became more and more interested and eventually set out to learn how to make real chocolate from the bean," she explained.
"I have always loved making things by hand and my decision to learn how to make chocolate was an extension of that. It was hard work as small batch chocolate making is a kind of alchemy.
"It’s a tricky substance and those early days involved a lot of trial and error and beginner’s luck. My first attempts tasted good and this encouraged me on to learn more."
She wanted to improve her understanding of the process and took a "bean-to-bar" course at Ecole Chocolat, then a hands-on course at Cocoatown with Chloe Doutre-Roussel and Marie Fernanda Di Giacobbe in Atlanta, Georgia.
"This experience working directly with these two remarkable and inspirational women really set the fire and I was determined to try and make world class chocolate," she said.
While in the US she bought the extra equipment she needed. "That was the point of no return," she said.
The business has grown from her basement to a portable cabin and then a converted dairy during the pandemic.
"Now we have grown into a family business something I had not foreseen when I started out on this journey," she said.
The product range has expanded from her original four bars to eight bars, dragées, pralines and Freddy Rocks hazelnut bon-bons.
"Being a chocolate maker is stimulating. Every day brings new challenges to keep you on your toes," she said.
There are many aspects of the business to keep on top of, including the financial side, which she admits she struggles with.
"Finding our place in the market has also not been easy as I started making chocolate from a passion with no thought to real growth and how I would go about doing it.
"The journey has been totally organic and it is only now we have grown and become a family business that we have started to seriously look at our direction."
Among the challenges the business faces are rising costs - including for its electricity.
"All our ingredients are sourced directly from Europe with no option to source from other UK based suppliers," added Deanna.
The Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival takes place at Snape Maltings on September 24 and 25.
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