About Us
Coppeneur has created premium. innovative and award winning chocolate products since 1993.
Most recently Coppeneur became the first micro-batch bean-to-bar chocolate maker in Germany. On their first journey to locate a plantation growing high quality cocoa beans, Georg and Oliver traveled to areas near the Amazon. Their journey eventually led to cocoa plantations in the Los Rios Valley of Ecuador and then finally to the organic certified plantation, Hacienda Iara, which cultivates the rare Nacional Arriba bean.
Other superior quality plantations were discovered including “Tabuna” in Papua New Guinea, "Menavava" in Madagascar (organic), "Uba Budo" in Sao Tome et Principe and "Buena Vista" in The Dominican Republic (organic). Coppeneur also creates regional “Single Origin” chocolate made with beans sourced from Trinidad, Jamaica, Grenada, the Java region of Indonesia and the Ocumare Valley of of Venezuela.
Occasionally, Coppeneur creates limited edition bars when very rare exceptional quality harvests of cocoa beans are discovered. In 2008, two sources of rare Porcelana cocoa beans; one from Venezuela and the other from Mexico were discovered. Only 950 bars from each source were created. On "a-soon-to-be-on-line" chocolate bar rating web site, our Venezuelan Porcelana bar is rated the #1 bar in the world, just slightly ahead of the Italian brand of chocolate that usually earns the #1 spot. Another discovery was made in Peru when a very small harvest of Porcelana beans became available for purchase and most recently Coppeneur purchased a single ton of cocoa beans from the famous valley of "Chuao" in Venezuela.
Coppeneur then pushed the boundaries further by becoming an organic cocoa grower. Amid ylang ylang, lychee, mango, black pepper and vanilla, Coppeneur found a wonderful fertile piece of land shielded by trees on a small hill located on "Nosy Be", a volcanic island off the northwest coast of Madagascar. Organic Criollo and Trinitario seeds from the freshest fruit of the best cocoa plantations in the Sambirano Valley were planted. The first cocoa crop is expected in 2011.
At regular intervals, Georg and Oliver travel to the cocoa growing regions of the world in search of the best cocoa beans and to visit plantation "Nosy Be" in Madagascar.
Your chocolatiers,
Georg Bernardini and Oliver Coppeneur
www.coppeneur.de (German Web Site)
Bruce Toy, the North American Importer for Coppeneur has more than 25 years of professional culinary experience.
After graduating from the University of Guelph with a BSc in 1980, Bruce's passion for high quality cuisine led to an apprentice cooking position at the world-renowned Post Hotel in Lake Louise, Alberta and completion of the apprenticeship program at George Brown College in Toronto.
In Toronto, Bruce worked with Olympic Gold Medal winning Chef Niels Kjeldsen at "Truffles" in the Four Seasons Yorkville Hotel and with Olympic Gold Medal winning Chef John Higgins at "Sanssouci" in the Sutton Place Hotel.
In 1989 Bruce returned to Alberta to create Filmworks Catering. Filmworks catered to more than 100 films including "The Assassination of Jesse James", "Unforgiven", "Legends of the Fall", "Open Range" and "Shanghai Noon". Well-fed actors include Clint Eastwood, Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, Russell Crowe, John Hurt, Annette Benning, Julia Ormond, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Aidin Quinn, Casey Affleck, Milla Jovovich, Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Meg Tilly, John Malkovich, Andy Garcia, Mary-Louise Parker, Sam Elliot, Sidney Poitier, Roy Scheider and Jon Voight.
Bruce discovered Coppeneur during an epicurean travel adventure through Europe in 2004. To focus his passion for chocolate, Bruce sold Filmworks Catering in 2006.
