February is a busy month in the world of chocolate, and while Valentine’s may be over the activity hasn’t stopped. This month seems to be all about seeking out top chocolate, with the launch of new chocolate app, a York chocolate map and the Big Egg Hunt around London. We’ve also got news of some great chocolatiers expanding their businesses and details of an exciting trip we made to visit a cocoa plantation in Honduras.

• World Chocolate Guide app launches
• York stakes claim as Britain’s Home of Chocolate
• Xoco trip to Honduras: a project to save fine cocoa
• Scottish chocolatier expands business
• Spot the chocolate in the Big Egg Hunt
• Niko B launches East London Chocolate Lab
• Tickets now on sale for the Cake & Bake Show!

How often do you have an overwhelming desire for chocolate or need to pick up a chocolatey gift for a loved one but don’t know where the nearest chocolate shop is? Now the answer is here. The people behind World Chocolate Guide and sister site Chocablog have launched a fantastic new app, mapping chocolate shops around the world.

The World Chocolate Guide app is designed to help you find great chocolate shops locally and around the world. You can view the closest shops as a list or on the map, and can filter the list to show only shops that sell fresh handmade chocolates, hot chocolate, cakes and pastries, or those that have café areas.

It also features their database of chocolate brands and chocolatiers, allowing you to find your favourite brand, read all about it and find the closest retailers.

Dom Ramsey, editor of Chocablog, co-founder of World Chocolate Guide and designer of the app said: "We developed the app for the same reason we developed World Chocolate Guide itself - to help us find great chocolate wherever we may be. The app instantly shows all the best chocolate destinations around us, so we always know we're never far from our next chocolate fix!"

The app features over 500 chocolate shops so far, but if your favourite chocolate shop isn’t listed yet, do get in touch and let them know about it.

The World Chocolate Guide App is available on iPhone and iPad for just 69p, and Android for 62p.

York, a city with 150 years of chocolate history, is hoping to entice chocolate fans to the city with several new chocolatey attractions launching this spring.

Tourism board, Visit York has created The Chocolate Trail, a map guiding visitors around the city’s many chocolate shops, cafes and attractions. Download your copy here.

CHOCOLATE – York’s Sweet Story, a new attraction charting the city’s long association with cocoa opens in the centre of the city on March 31st. Visitors will be taken on a journey, which begins in Central America’s rainforests to discover how confectionery found a home in the city. The memories of former employees and the secrets of the families that founded the confectionery companies Rowntree’s, Terry’s and Craven’s will be shared for the first time, and visitors will be able to learn the fine art of chocolate tasting and the intricate processes that cocoa beans go through to become a chocolate bar including grinding, conching and tempering.

If all that wasn’t enough, the first York Chocolate Festival is scheduled to take place over the Easter Weekend (April 6-9). Organised by chocolatier, Sophie Jewett from York Cocoa House. Events are expected to take place around the city including a chocolate party at the top of York Minster.

Chocolate Week's festival director Kate Johns on her fascinating trip to see an exciting new cocoa growing project in Central America. 

A group of chocolate producers, chocolatiers and experts were recently invited by Xoco to visit their project in Honduras. I was privileged enough to be amongst that group. Xoco has the goal of producing the best flavoured cocoa beans in the world by selecting the finest cocoa trees and reproducing them. It’s an initiative that will hopefully go a long way to addressing the huge problems that currently face the cocoa growing industry, such as generations of farmers moving away from growing cocoa due to the low price they’re paid for beans and that the temperatures in the Ivory Coast and Ghana - the biggest cocoa producing regions - are set to rise, which affects the viability of growing crops...

We are very pleased to share the news that top chocolatier Iain Burnett’s business is doing so well that he’s having to quadruple the size of his production area.

Since launching over 5 years ago, Iain Burnett The Highland Chocolatier has received several awards including a number from the Academy of Chocolate and is supplier to many of the top hotels and restaurants including Claridges, The Lanesborough, Gleneagles and 3 Gordon Ramsay Royal Hospital Road.

With delicious flavours such as the Cocoa Dusted Velvet Truffle, Raspberry & Black Pepper Velvet Truffle, White Lime & Chilli Velvet Truffle and Assam Tea & Green Cardamom Velvet Truffle, it’s easy to see why it’s not just the UK that’s demanding more of Iain’s award-winning chocolates - the business has recently started supplying Japan, Oman, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Germany with China and the USA also being considered.

Iain said “Although the country is in recession, the quality of what we produce is just not affected because at times like this, the consumer treats themselves to high quality produce.”

Products are available at Harvey Nichols, Edinburgh, The Food Hall at McEwens, Perth and online.

Over 200 giant eggs have been hidden in secret locations throughout central London as part of ‘The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt’, a magical event challenging the public to take on the world’s biggest Easter egg hunt, and three of the country’s top chocolate shops, William Curley, Paul a Young and Charbonnel et Walker are taking part.

All three have created giant chocolate eggs for the event, to sit alongside eggs designed by some of the world’s leading artists, architects, jewelers and designers, including Mulberry, Sir Ridley Scott, Zandra Rhodes and Diane Von Furstenberg.

Paul a Young’s Chocolate Egg, created with both adults and children in mind, is a fun design, featuring a textured chocolate shell decorated with colourful chocolate hens and coconut grass.

Created using Tuscan Amedei dark chocolate and Japanese Wasabi chocolate, William’s egg - The Golden Speckled Egg - is aiming to break the world record for the most expensive non-jeweled chocolate egg ever to be sold at auction.

The organisers are also hoping to smash the record for the most participants in an Easter egg hunt. The two Guinness World Records attempts are part of World Record London, which will see the most exciting capital in the world attempt over 20 Guinness World Records to make London a multi record-breaking city.

The hand-crafted eggs, which are destined to become highly collectible works of art, are available to bid for online and at auction, with proceeds going to Action for Children and Elephant Family.

To find out more about The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt and how to take part, visit the website

Following the success of their Christmas pop-up and dessert supper club, Niko B Organic Chocolates is opening the Chocolate Lab at the Avo Hotel, Dalston. During its three-month residency, 82 Dalston Lane will become a major chocolate workspace encompassing a chocolate shop, the Niko B chocolate kitchen and fresh hot chocolates and desserts served canteen style at solid wood communal tables.

Customers will be able to experience how fresh truffles are made, melted, flavoured and, importantly, how they taste when they are served straight from the kitchen, while enjoying the aromas of chocolate and caramel and the sounds of New Orleans jazz and Motown's Soul.

On Sundays, a special brunch service will be on offer, featuring American pancakes with a chocolate twist, flipped hot by American-born chocolatier Anthony Ferguson, and a special Chocolate Tea service as well as a chocolate evening neighbourhood bar is also planned.

Visit the Niko B Organic Chocolates website for more information

You can now purchase your tickets for the biggest baking event of the year! Featuring many famed bakers including Great British Bake Off’s Paul Hollywood, Mary Berry and Edd Kimber and Eric Landlard of Cake Boy plus several stars of the chocolate world in our very own Chocolate Week area - including Paul A Young and Squire’s Kitchen’s Mark Tilling - the show promises to be an unmissable event.

Purchase your tickets here