Video: IFE World Food Innovation Awards – best confectionery innovation

This year’s best confectionery innovation category at the IFE World Food Innovation Awards featured an enticing array of chocolate, ice cream and sugar confectionery.

Schokolat put aside the idea that there was nothing quite as useless as a chocolate teapot  with its “really useful” functioning chocolate teapot, featuring a removable lid and 600g of the finest chocolate. The consumer can fill the teapot with hot water, stir in cocoa powder and pour a hot chocolate drink; then, by adding more hot water, they can create a chocolate ganache inside.

The Gusto Vita blueberry cardamom bon bon from Bonello Chocolatier is a “health-conscious chocolate treat to excite the palette and wow the senses”. Packed with antioxidants and the health benefits of dark chocolate, it has a shell coloured with the juice of blueberries and ganache that has been flavoured with blueberries and cardamom that has been infused with low-calorie, electrolyte-rich coconut water.

Mallow & Marsh entered its lighter marshmallow bars into the category. The fast-growing brand combines “good flavour, good quality chocolate and a delicious natural marshmallow” for a lighter snacking option – available in vanilla, raspberry and coconut variants.

There were two ice cream products nominated: V&H Ltd uses Belgian chocolate and British dairy to offer a modern twist on a traditional Japanese treat, mochi. The brand replaces the conventional red bean paste filling with decadent chocolate ganache, which is wrapped in soft mochi and dusted with cocoa powder.

And while sweet fennel may be an unexpected choice of ice cream flavour, Purbeck Ice Cream’s combination of fresh milk, Dorset cream, British sugar and natural ingredients culminates in a product that is “beautifully aromatic with a great creamy texture and pronounced aniseed flavour”.

Elsewhere, Katjes Magic Candy Factory is the world’s first 3D printer for fruit gummies. It takes around five minutes to print a candy weighing 15g–25g, and represents “a real breakthrough for the candy maker on several levels”.

It also rounded off the best confectionery innovation category for this year.

Finalists and winners in the 20 categories of the World Food Innovation Awards 2016 were announced at a special ceremony at Hotelympia at ExCel in London on 1 March. To see the full list of winners and finalists, click here.