A small Queensland chocolate maker has taken home a top prize at the prestigious Australian Food Awards, Toowoomba chocolatier coveted award, winning the Champion Australian Small Producer trophy.

Metiisto Chocolate is based in Toowoomba, and beat cattle and dairy farmers, olive oil producers and pate makers with its incredible cocoa creations.

Trevor Smith is the man behind the chocolate, and has been making chocolate by hand with his wife Magdalena in a tiny shed in a Toowoomba industrial estate since 2018.

However, Metiisto actually started back in 2012 in Falun, a small town deep in the forests of Sweden. After winning five international awards as well as four Academy of Chocolate awards, Trevor and Magdalena decided to close down Metiisto to focus on their family.

It was after an extended holiday in Australia—Mr Smith’s home country—that they decided to move to Toowoomba and re-open Metiisto.

Using cacao beans from the Solomon Islands, Metiisto prides itself on making delicious and elegant chocolate from the cocoa bean all the way to the finished bar, using only the finest, ethically sourced ingredients.

It takes around a month to produce the chocolate from roasting the beans, cracking them to remove the germ and the husk, leaving the nib (a process called winnowing), refining the cocoa and sugar to get the perfect texture, conching (this involves massaging, heating and airing the chocolate for up to four days non-stop to polish the cocoa, refine the flavour, and reduce moisture), ageing, tempering, and finally, wrapping the finished bar ready for sale.

In just over a year of operation in Australia, Metiisto has secured customers at home and across the US, France, England, Netherlands, Finland, and New Zealand.

Metiisto has also picked up an impressive array of international accolades in chocolate this year including the Rising Star Award at the prestigious Academy of Chocolate Awards in London.