Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew, and cover it with chocolate and a miracle or two? Greytown-based Schoc Chocolates can, as one lucky chocolate lover recently found when she discovered the first of three Golden Tickets in her Schoc block of chocolate.
Wellingtonian Sarah Rubano purchased her chocolate bar at the Mediterranean Food Warehouse in Newtown, Wellington, only the Golden Ticket after she returned home.
Rubano said she wasn’t sure what it was initially but was thrilled to learn it meant she’d won $1000 worth of Schoc chocolate.
“My husband unwrapped the chocolate and saw a golden ticket glistening through the paper. He called out to me, ‘Sarah – I think something exciting has just happened, we’ve won something big!’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘Willy Wonka’ is one of my favourite movies, so to win $1000 worth of Schoc chocolate with a Golden Ticket is magic,” Rubano said.
Although the ticket doesn’t entitle Rubano to visit the candy-land world of Oompa-Loompas, where there are drinkable chocolate rivers, and invention is 93 per cent perspiration, six per cent electricity, four per cent evaporation, and two per cent butterscotch ripple, she said she is nonetheless looking forward to sharing her chocolate supply with others to spread the joy further.
Greytown chocolate shop Schoc Chocolates set up the Golden Ticket promotion as part of its 20th birthday celebration, with obvious inspiration courtesy of Roald Dahl’s fictional character Willy Wonka.
“We’re absolutely thrilled that the first Golden Ticket has been discovered – and got so excited when Sarah first called that I forgot to take her details so we could call her back,” Schoc chocolatier and owner Murray Langham said.
“We’ve come a long way since our humble beginnings in 2002. We’re still in the same 100-year-old cottage that we started in, but now have over 60 flavours of tablets, chocolate shoes, chocolate bowls, and 50 different truffle flavours. We supply our hand-made chocolate to over 20 selected stores nationwide and have plenty of visitors who make the trip especially to Greytown to sample our unique and sometimes off-the-wall flavours.”
Langham is a well-known chocolatier, recognised worldwide for his innovative and unique style of chocolate-making via appearances on New Zealand television, the BBC,
Australia’s ‘Surfing the Menu’, and Martha Stewart’s show.
Two further Golden Tickets remain to be found before June 1, 2024, when the celebratory promotion expires.
