Davao-based chocolate manufacturer Malagos Chocolate bagged four Gold awards at the 2020 World Drinking Chocolate Competition in Hannover, Germany. The top prize was given to the company in the Plain/Origin Drinking Chocolate (made with water), Growing Country, Chocolate Maker and Direct Traded categories. They also won Bronze in the Made with Milk category of the Plain/Origin Drinking Chocolate bracket.

“We limited our competition entries this year due to the economic impact of COVID-19. Expensive kasi to join these competitions. We chose to compete here as this has sentimental value for us,” says the group.

In 2015, Malagos Chocolate won their very first international award in the same category of Plain/Origin Drinking Chocolate. Their entry was the 100 percent Premium Unsweetened Chocolate which is the purest of the company’s products, the “backbone” of their entire line as they call it. It contains only one ingredient: fermented dried cacao bean. 

The accolades the family-owned business received made the group more proud to be cacao growers. Their Gold award in the Growing Country category is only given to chocolate that is completely produced and packaged in a cacao-growing country. It must qualify for the Grand Jury round and has at least 10 local products entered into the category. 

Meanwhile, the Gold Chocolate Maker award is granted to chocolate that is fully made from cacao beans and manufactured in the entering company’s own factory. The chocolate made from cacao with no middlemen involved, with as few steps as possible in the production chain, and where the chocolate maker has direct contact with the grower is awarded the Gold Direct Trader. Malagos Chocolate has 50 international awards to date which for them was all earned by Filipino farmers.

“Kudos to all Filipino chocolate makers who make great chocolates and help place the Philippines on the chocolate map of the world,” their Instagram post reads.

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