{"id":67842,"date":"2026-05-03T06:56:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T06:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enter.chocolateawards.com\/?p=67842"},"modified":"2026-05-04T10:07:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T10:07:35","slug":"french-benelux-craft-chocolatier-competition-2026-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enter.chocolateawards.com\/nl\/competitions\/french\/french-benelux-craft-chocolatier-competition-2026-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"French\/Benelux Craft Chocolatier Competition 2026 &#8211; Winners"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"67842\" class=\"elementor elementor-67842\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-3c2c6d19 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"3c2c6d19\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-101d16eb\" data-id=\"101d16eb\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-448da45a elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"448da45a\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>The International Chocolate Awards is pleased to announce the Winners of the <em><strong>French\/Benelux<\/strong><strong>\u00a0Craft Chocolatier competition<\/strong><\/em>, which was judged in-person in Bordeaux, France on 30 April and 1 May 2026 at the Show\/Colat Festival.\u00a0<\/p><p>The winners&#8217; announcement was held at <em><strong>Show\/Colat<\/strong><\/em> in Bordeaux, France on Saturday, 2nd May during a fun live event where many of our entrants came together to celebrate award-winning European craft chocolate. Our co-founders Monica Meschini and Martin Christy hosted the event together with Grand Jury members and some of our local judges.\u00a0<\/p><p>Winners of these rounds will pass through to the World Final organized in October-November 2026.<\/p><p>This craft competition awards prizes for <strong>craft chocolatier products<\/strong> including filled chocolates\/bonbons, pralines, enrobed fruits and nuts and chocolate spreads made with bean-to-bar chocolate as well as flavoured bars made with couverture.<\/p><p>Plain\/origin and flavoured bean-to-bar products from European chocolate makers were judged at the 2026 European, Middle Eastern and African Bean-to-Bar Competition in April-May 2026.<\/p><h3>Judges<\/h3><p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/enter.chocolateawards.com\/judges\/?comp_id=374193\">judges<\/a> were drawn from local experts, food journalists, our <a href=\"http:\/\/chocolatetastinginstitute.org\">IICCT<\/a> Alumni and members of our permanent international Grand Jury.<\/p><h3>Prizes<\/h3><p>The categories judged included filled chocolates, enrobed fruits and nuts and chocolate spreads, as well as flavoured bars (not bean-to-bar). All judging is anonymized, including at the Grand Jury final session, where Gold, Silver and Bronze prizes are awarded by private voting.<\/p><div>** Bean-to-bar chocolatier products \u2013 recognising the growing trend of filled chocolate made by chocolate makers, winning products made with an entrant\u2019s own chocolate are marked with (**).<\/div><p>Awards are awarded only to entries that meet the required standard for each prize.<\/p><h3><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The 2026 French\/Benelux Craft Chocolatier Winners are:<\/span><\/h3><p><p><em>(Prizes are shown in score order for each medal)<\/em><\/p><div><\/div><hr class=\"dotted\" \/><h1>Repen met toegevoegde smaak<\/h1><div><\/div><h2>Melkchocoladerepen met een vulling<\/h2><div class=\"cat-prizes\"><p style=\"margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 3pt;\"><strong>Bronze<\/strong>: <em>chocolatier Yasushi Sasaki<\/em>&nbsp; (Belgium) &#8211; <strong>Vietnamienne<\/strong> <span style=\"margin-left: 3pt; color: #601212;\">(<strong><span title=\"Final judging score from the IICCT profiling system\">85.7<\/span><\/strong>)<\/span><\/p><\/div><h2>Combination chocoladerepen met een vulling<\/h2><div class=\"cat-prizes\"><p style=\"margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 3pt;\"><strong>Bronze<\/strong>: <em><span class=\"results-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/louisfouquet.fr\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"results-link\">Louis Fouquet<\/a><\/span><\/em>&nbsp; (France) &#8211; <strong>Tablette pralinaise amande noir<\/strong> <span style=\"margin-left: 3pt; color: #601212;\">(<strong><span title=\"Final judging score from the IICCT profiling system\">85.6<\/span><\/strong>)<\/span><\/p><\/div><hr class=\"dotted\" \/><h1>Ganaches, palets, ganache pralines en truffels<\/h1><div><\/div><h2>Ganaches of truffels van melkchocolade<\/h2><div class=\"cat-prizes\"><p style=\"margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 3pt;\"><strong>Bronze<\/strong>: <em><span class=\"results-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.legastchocolatier.com\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"results-link\">Legast Artisan<\/a><\/span><\/em>&nbsp; (Belgium) &#8211; <strong>Banana &#038; Caramel Milk Ganache<\/strong> <span style=\"margin-left: 3pt; color: #601212;\">(<strong><span title=\"Final judging score from the IICCT profiling system\">86.0<\/span><\/strong>)<\/span> <span title=\"Winner has declared the product is made with their own bean-to-bar chocolate or couverture.\">(**)<\/span><\/p><\/div><hr class=\"dotted\" \/><h1>Noten<\/h1><div><\/div><h2>Pralines op basis van noten met melkchocolade &#8230;<\/h2><div class=\"cat-prizes\"><p style=\"margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 3pt;\"><strong>Bronze<\/strong>: <em><span class=\"results-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hasnaa-chocolats.fr\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"results-link\">La F\u00e8verie by Hasna\u00e2<\/a><\/span><\/em>&nbsp; (France) &#8211; <strong>Pralin\u00e9 frangipane<\/strong> <span style=\"margin-left: 3pt; color: #601212;\">(<strong><span title=\"Final judging score from the IICCT profiling system\">86.2<\/span><\/strong>)<\/span> <span title=\"Winner has declared the product is made with their own bean-to-bar chocolate or couverture.\">(**)<\/span><\/p><\/div><hr class=\"dotted\" \/><h1>Overige &#8211; fruit\/suiker\/boter\/cr\u00e8me<\/h1><div><\/div><h2>Met donkere chocolade omhuld heel fruit<\/h2><div class=\"cat-prizes\"><p style=\"margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 3pt;\"><strong>Silver<\/strong>: <em><span class=\"results-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.arachocolat.com\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"results-link\">Ara Chocolat<\/a><\/span><\/em>&nbsp; (France) &#8211; <strong>Olives de Nyons au chocolat<\/strong> <span style=\"margin-left: 3pt; color: #601212;\">(<strong><span title=\"Final judging score from the IICCT profiling system\">88.4<\/span><\/strong>)<\/span> <span title=\"Winner has declared the product is made with their own bean-to-bar chocolate or couverture.\">(**)<\/span><\/p><p style=\"margin-left: 37pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 3pt;\"><span title=\"Special prizes recognise the entrant's skill in recipe, ingredients or style\"><strong>+ Special<\/strong>: Ingredients<\/span><\/p><\/div><hr \/><p><em>(*) &nbsp;Declared chocolate maker for private label bars.<\/em><\/p><p><em>(**) Winner has declared the product is made with their own bean-to-bar chocolate or couverture.<\/em><\/p><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Winners of the 2026 French\/Benelux Craft Chocolatier Competition announced<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4061,"featured_media":67954,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[223,79,135,78,136,137,133],"class_list":["post-67842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-french","tag-223","tag-benelux","tag-craft-chocolatier","tag-french","tag-news","tag-results","tag-winners"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>French\/Benelux Craft Chocolatier Competition 2026 - Winners - International Chocolate Awards<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/enter.chocolateawards.com\/competitions\/french\/french-benelux-craft-chocolatier-competition-2026-winners\/\" \/>\n<meta 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