OODAALOLLY WINS INTERNATIONAL CHOCOLATE AWARDS SILVER

SAN FRANCISCO, California - Oodaalolly’s Pinch of Pangasinan took home Silver in the “Milk chocolate bars with inclusions or pieces” category at this year’s Americas Bean-to-Bar and Craft Chocolatier Competition. The winners were announced on Saturday, September 3rd, via a virtual award show broadcast online from New York City. Oodaalolly had three (3) entries make it into this year's finalist round. 

Being Oodaalolly’s first time participating, it was unexpected and gratifying to make it to the finals and have a bar win a prize at this year’s event. Co-founders Hernan Lauber and Jeremy Burnich were happy to share their excitement with a pre-recorded video played live at the award ceremony. “We were happy to medal in such a competitive 2021-22 season,” said Burnich. “The quality and number of chocolate makers from all over the Americas show how much craft chocolate has grown over the past decade.” 

Oodaalolly is proud to champion both Philippine cacao and Swiss chocolate-making techniques. Lauber noted, “ it is the combination of these two things that make Oodaalolly unique.” Oodaalolly is all about old traditions and new methods.

Pinch of Pangasinan will now go on to the world finals in Germany, where we hope to bring further recognition to Filipino cacao on the world stage.

The Chocolate

Oodaalolly’s Pinch of Pangasinan is an oat milk chocolate. Combining premium cacao from the Davao region of the Philippines and oat milk provides a great gluten-free and vegan alternative to traditional dairy milk bars while providing the same fantastic flavor and creamy mouth feel associated with great milk chocolate. 

In addition to Philippine cacao, Oodaalolly employed Ilocano Asin—naturally white sea salt from the pure seawaters of the coastal Pangasinan Province. Combined with time-honored salt making techniques, this mineral-rich sea salt contains both granular (sal gris) and flake (fleur de sel ) crystals. The hollow crystals provide a textural crunch while the flakes melt immediately on the palate, a perfect counterpoint to the milky creaminess of Oodaalolly’s chocolate. 

The Presentation

The colorful box features a unique pattern designed by Oodaalolly. It features colors from the official seal of the Province of Pangasinan, and the pattern was inspired by traditional textile designs of indigenous Filipino peoples. 

The Mold Design

The bar tells the story of Oodaalolly and its celebration of both Filipino and Swiss cultures and traditions. The cacao and the cocoa butter we pressed for the bar come from Davao on the southern island of Mindanao in the Philippines. The pattern on the mold calls attention to that origin by displaying a regional textile motif from the Yakan people who inhabit the area. 

The bar also incorporates the Swiss cross into the mold design—Hernan is a Swiss national, and Oodaalolly uses Swiss-style chocolate-making techniques that Hernan learned while working with his father, a classically Swiss-trained baker, pastry chef, and chocolatier.

About Oodaalolly Chocolate

Oodaalolly is what you’d exclaim after biting into something extraordinary, and you need to express exuberant delight or all-encompassing joy. In 2017, Filipino-American and the son of a Swiss chocolate maker, Hernan Lauber, founded Oodaalolly in the San Francisco Bay Area. He blazed a new path in his family’s chocolate heritage by blending the best of his upbringing's two cultures. Oodaalolly focuses exclusively on direct trade sourcing of natural ingredients from the Philippines, combines them with time-honored family recipes and techniques, and creates award-winning chocolate. Follow @oodaalolly on Facebook, Instagram, and Spotify.

About xRoads Salt

xroads Philippine Sea Salts® was launched in an effort to preserve the tradition of hand-crafted sea salts as a sustainable, eco-friendly product. Our sea salts represent hope for a better future for the local community and awareness to culinary enthusiasts and chefs everywhere of a nearly forgotten product from the Philippines.

About the International Chocolate Awards

The International Chocolate Awards is an independent competition recognizing excellence in fine chocolate making and in the products made with fine chocolate. As the World’s only fully independent international fine chocolate competition, we aim to support companies producing fine chocolate and chocolatiers, small companies, and artisans working with fine chocolate. By helping these markets to grow and develop, we also aim to support the farmers that grow fine cacao.

The Awards were founded in 2012 and are run by a group of independent international partners based in the UK, Italy and the USA, with years of experience tasting and evaluating chocolate and running fine chocolate-related events. The rules and judging are overseen by our permanent Grand Jury members, Country Partners, and independent experts, who set the rules of the Awards based on ongoing consultation with our entrants.

Competitions are held in a growing number of countries and regions around the world, including Italy, the UK, USA, Germany, Scandinavia, Belgium and other locations, with more competitions added each year. Winners of the regional competitions are judged together at the World Final, which celebrates the best entries of the year. Entry to the Awards is by submission and is open for any consumer retail products that meet the quality criteria laid down in our rules. Our judges include a wide range of experts, tasters, pastry chefs, food journalists, bloggers, sommeliers, chefs and our Grand Jury.

By making consumers more aware of the hard work and craft that goes into the best fine chocolate products, the International Chocolate Awards helps the fine chocolate industry to grow and develop in established regions as well as new markets. By helping to identify the best chocolate made with the best cacao, we hope to help chocolate makers, chocolatiers and cacao farmers continue to succeed at producing the world’s best fine cacao and fine chocolate.

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