East Anglian bean to bar chocolate maker scoops accolades at 2018 Academy of Chocolate Awards.

An East Anglian chocolatier is celebrating three of her bars winning at the 2018 Academy of Chocolate Awards.

Deanna Tilston of Tosier, only launched the business last autumn at the Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival, and has had a fantastic reception for her four, single origin chocolate bars, made from scratch in Ipswich with pure natural ingredients and no additives or binders.

“It was a pretty prestigious international affair,” Deanna said. “There were 1,200 entries in total, so I was humbled that the first ever submission, three of the four bars we produce were recognised with awards.”

Only one other bean-to-bar producer from the UK (Dormouse) received a Gold award.

Tosier’s prizes in the dark bean-to-bar under 80% category include:

Gold for the Maya Mountain from Belize, 70%

Bronze for the Acul Du Noir from Haitia, 70%

Bronze for the Tumaco from Colombia, 70%

Deanna hadn’t always wanted to work in the world of chocolate. In fact, it was a health issue that led her into this new, foodie career, having been told she needed a gallbladder operation.

“I’m not a hospital person. And when they mentioned taking them [gallstones] out I said ‘I’ll change my diet, I’ll change my diet’.”

Deanna found she needed to eat more magnesium and realised this key mineral was in one of her favourite foods – chocolate.

“I looked into it more, and read about what good chocolate was, because I was looking to have a cleaner diet. The chocolate we buy has all these additives – shellac, Arabic gum. We went to The Chocolate Show two years ago and I just thought ‘I’m going to make chocolate’.”

Deanna bought two kilos of beans, and hasn’t looked back since, using only sustainable beans from the top 5% producers for her award-winning natural chocolate bars.

You can find the bars across Norfolk, Suffolk and London – including Earsham Street Deli, Snape Maltings, Love One (Ipswich), Jarrold, Strattons CoCoe Cafes Deli and Blakeney Deli.