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Trevor Smith, chocolate
champion, displays his 2008
awards in his Beaulieu
Chocolate Studio in the
picturesque New Forest village
working on a new chilli and lime
truffle,’ says award-winning chocolatier
‘I’m
Trevor Smith enthusiastically. ‘I like
the fact that I can do what I like. If it
doesn’t work, I don’t do it any more. Our
chilli chocolate bars sell rather well.’
Trevor has made quite a name for
himself since he opened the Beaulieu
Chocolate Studio in 2006. Last year he won
several accolades at the Guild of Fine Food’s
Great Taste Awards – recognised as the
Oscars for fine foods – taking two Gold
Awards, one for his sherry truffles and the
second for the dark chocolate bar with mint.
‘I’m delighted with the awards,’ he says,
‘particularly for the dark chocolate mint bar
which I devised soon after opening Beaulieu
Chocolate Studio. It has become one of the
shop’s most popular sellers. We also won an
award in 2006 for Champagne truffles.
We’d just opened the shop and entering was
the first thing we did.’
Though born in Brockenhurst, Trevor
gained his chocolate skills in France, where
he studied patisserie and worked in Paris for
two years. ‘I then bought my own
bakery/patisserie in the Loire valley and
began doing a little bit of chocolate. I learnt
how to temper chocolate and other basic
skills and each year introduced a little more
into the shop. It was an accident, in a way,
but I found I really enjoyed working with
chocolate.’
‘Clever Trevor bought the
machinery with the
invaluable goodwill
thrown in’
Trevor returned to the UK in 2004 with
a vague idea of starting up a patisserie on his
home ground but found the costs
prohibitive, much higher than they had been
in France. Luck was smiling on him, though,
when he successfully applied for the job of
chocolatier at Beaulieu Chocolates,
established in the 1980s and owned by the
Beaulieu Estate. ‘I stood a pretty good
chance,’ he says with a smile. ‘When you
advertise for a chocolatier you don’t get too
many replies, so I was on the short list for a
start.’
Luck was on his side again when the
estate offered the business for sale in 2005
but failed to find a buyer. ‘I said I’d like to
buy the machinery and set up on my own in
new premises,’ recalls Trevor. ‘The estate was
quite supportive, keeping the new building
empty while they decided what to do. They
wanted to encourage food-producing
businesses in Beaulieu so that it’s not just full
of gift shops.’
Clever Trevor bought the machinery with
the invaluable goodwill thrown in and
moved to new, small premises on the other
side of the road, taking with him several staff
from Beaulieu Chocolates. ‘I couldn’t see the
original business ever making money as it
was before,’ he says. ‘A lot of people were
paid for packing, and the chocolate makers
were in the factory a long way back from the
shop and we had no contact with the
customers. We now make the chocolate in an
area that can be viewed by visitors to the
shop, and if a customer comes in I can serve.
We don’t need to pay people just to serve in
the shop, or just to pack, so it’s much easier
to manage and we can make a little bit of
money. I don’t think I’m ever going to be
rich, but I really enjoy my job.’
Trevor says that last Christmas was his
busiest yet, but that of the year’s two major
chocolate events, Easter is his favourite. ‘I
like to make traditional eggs and I don’t
know anybody else who makes iced eggs like
outlook v
ours, which are probably our biggest Easter
seller. We also do more contemporary
things, like ginger eggs, or chilli and mint.
We have lots for children as well, iced eggs
and milk-and-white marbled eggs, and try
to do a bit of everything. We put chocolate
fish and animals inside some of our smaller
eggs for children.’ His best seller, though,
whatever time of year, is a local speciality
product known as New Forest Bark, loved
by tourists and locals alike. ‘It’s dark
chocolate with toasted almonds,’ he
explains. ‘We make it on a large tray and
break it as it comes off. The lines running
through it make it look like bark. We
actually ran out at Christmas.’
He hasn’t yet decided what he will
enter in this year’s Great Taste Awards but
is considering a dark chocolate and
raspberry bar. ‘Awards are always
subjective,’ says Trevor. ‘Sometimes I enter
something that I think is really good and it
doesn’t win anything. But we try to enter
new things. If we win, and can put the
sticker on the product, it does sell more
quickly than others.’
Despite working in his own chocolate
heaven, Trevor admits that he doesn’t give
in to temptation, and eats only about one
chocolate a day. ‘I have to try them, and we
also make all our own ganache centres and
I have to taste them as well. We specialise
in fresh-cream truffles, so we only use fresh
cream, chocolate and sugar. The awardwinning
Champagne and sherry truffles are
both fresh-cream.’
‘… he’s been asked to
make 50 chocolate
policemen’
Trevor’s skills are also in demand for
bespoke commissions. For his sister’s
wedding in August he plans to make
individual chocolate ‘flower-pots’ filled with
mousse, which will be served to guests
instead of wedding cake. And for a July
wedding for one of the boys in blue he’s
been asked to make 50 chocolate policemen
to be placed on the dinner tables as unique
wedding favours.
‘Beaulieu Chocolate had many oldfashioned
metal moulds, which came to me
when I bought the machinery,’ he says.
‘You name it, they had a mould for it.
Among them I found a policeman, a little
over four-inches tall.
‘The thing is,’ he adds wryly, ‘there’s
only one mould, so I’ll have to make the
chocolate policemen one at a time. And the
old-fashioned metal moulds are actually
quite difficult to work with so I’m going to
be pretty busy…’ V
www.beaulieuchocolatestudio.co.uk
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