By Eleanor Wilson
PRECEDE:
Eight years ago, husband and wife team Jason Stockton and Anya Tran never imagined they would soon be running a successful handmade chocolate business. Neither had any formal training in the culinary world – in fact, they both worked office jobs in web development and accounting. As Star News journalist ELEANOR WILSON discovered, it was a love for ‘all things chocolate’ that carved the foundations of a new start for the Cranbourne West couple.
BREAKOUT QUOTE: “Pretty much everything we sell at some point has been touched by Anya’s hands.“
While they may have a thriving couverture chocolate business today, Jason and Anya’s journey had a humble start, from their home kitchen in Cranbourne West in 2015.
“We wanted to do something together as a business, but we didn’t know what to do,” Jason said.
“Then one day I was baking with chocolate and I said ‘I really like working with chocolate’, and my wife said ‘that’s funny, I always wanted to open a dessert store’…and that was it.
“We went and bought two and a half kilos of chocolate, thinking that was a lot – it was a lot in the grand scheme of things, but yeah it was at the time.
“We made some chocolates and they were great, but we had to learn a lot, we didn’t know much.”
With a little practice and plenty of patience, the couple began selling their chocolates online and at local markets, until they saved enough money to purchase their first storefront in Olinda in 2017.
About a year ago they purchased their Cranbourne West factory and storefront, where they handcraft all of their chocolate today.
While the launching pad for the business came from Jason’s culinary appetite, it is Anya who wears the head chocolatier hat.
“The irony is that I don’t work with chocolate at all anymore,” Jason said.
“Anya does it all and I look after the business side of things and that’s mainly because she’s very good at process and doing the same thing every day.
“I can’t do that, I need something new every day…so it works well.
The head chocolatier, Ms Tran hand pipes each chocolate with a variety of delicious fillings, from apple and cinnamon, to cookies and cream and even chilli and cashew.
It’s a laborious and repetitive process, but she is suited to it, Jason says.
“Anya’s been piping for eight years, so she’s very quick and efficient at piping and doing it to a particular level – she can fill each chocolate almost identically,” he said.
“That’s only something you can get by either doing it by machine, but to do it by hand it takes years of practice and skill.“
As Jason explains, the chocolate making process starts by tempering high quality Swiss and Belgian chocolate, while Anya hand paints each mould with a custom design made from coloured cocoa butter.
The chocolate is then poured into poly-carbonate moulds and left to set, before it is hand piped with filling.
“I’ve always loved desserts, it was never chocolate in particular, just sweets in general,” Anya said.
“I think I’ve always liked crafting things – I always wanted to have a dessert store.
“I’m good with accounting and finance, but it’s just not my passion.”
The self-taught chocolatier said the journey has not been without its challenges.
“Some things were hard to learn, for example caramel – it was difficult to come up with the right recipe for caramel, because it seems easy – it’s sugar and cream, but everyone has their own recipe,” Anya said.
The most popular range at the store are the Only Mine bonbons, which Jason says make up about half of the store’s sales.
During the colder months, the brand’s signature hot chocolate mix is a major drawcard.
“This is not like any other chocolate, it’s hard to explain,” Jason said.
“You want a hot chocolate to taste like you’re drinking chocolate, that’s what you want from it, that was the goal when we created it and people come in hoards over winter to get it.”
As for Anya and Jason’s favourite, that’s like asking them to choose a favourite child, Jason jokes.
“We’ve created them all to our tastes and what we would like to eat ourselves so if it’s there, one of us likes it!”
Sustainability is another large focus for the brand.
“Being a chocolate brand, the future of chocolate farming is important, as well as ensuring the farmers are receiving fair prices for their products,” Jason said.
Only Mine currently supports several sustainability initiatives, including Cacao Trace, which seeks to provide training to farmers to maximise their harvests and grow better quality beans.
“The higher the bean quality, the more the farmers are paid for their crops, in turn yielding them higher profits for many years to come,” Jason said.
They also try to source ingredients locally where possible, such as their chai and honey, which comes from the Mornington Peninsula.
Looking forward, Jason and Anya say their next challenge is continuing to grow the business, having recently opened a third store in Melbourne’s CBD in July last year.
“Ultimately, we want to be able to put a challenge up to the likes of Koko Black and the bigger players in the premium chocolate space,” Jason said.
“That’s the goal and it’s gonna take time, just building the brand, getting awareness out there for the product and getting people to try it, because that the only way we can grow, is by our customers trying the product.”
