EVOO-Filled Chocolates from Spain

A fam­ily in Spain has cre­ated a choco­late bon­bon filled with olive oil, and hopes to mar­ket the treats around the globe.

The unusual choco­late and olive-oil mix­ture is a ​“con­trast of fla­vors that leaves no palate indif­fer­ent,” accord­ing to Cristóbal Sánchez Arán, co-founder of AOVE lasolana2, who says he devel­oped the idea while test­ing recipes for Christmas.

The candy — 72 per­cent bit­ter black choco­late filled with extra vir­gin olive oil — are called Bocaditos de AOVE. They are pro­duced in a part­ner­ship with LaVirgitana, a Spanish maker of arti­san choco­lates. The choco­lates are pack­aged under both the La Virgitana and AOVE lasolana2 brands.

The can­dies are just the lat­est effort from a fam­ily of olive oil grow­ers and afi­ciona­dos.

Sánchez Arán told Olive Oil Times that he and his wife, Maria Luisa, both work as bankers. But when they leave their jobs at the end of the day, they and their chil­dren turn their atten­tion to the small olive plan­ta­tion they own just north of Almeria.

The fam­ily is ​“surely one of the small pro­duc­ers of qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil in the world,” he said. ​“We have 1,100 olive trees and pro­duce an aver­age between 3,000 and 4,000 liters of olive oil per year.”

The entire fam­ily works the fields. Sánchez Arán also han­dles mar­ket­ing, sales and account­ing.

Sánchez Arán’s oil is sold in Spain and is exported to Russia, Colombia, Belgium and Saudi Arabia.

He hopes to find sim­i­lar mar­kets for the bon­bons, which debuted at the Extra Virgin Olive Oil Fair of the Costa del Sol fes­ti­val ear­lier this month.

Taking a dif­fer­ent approach to olive oil is a bit of a habit for Sánchez Arán. His fam­ily also sells a skin cream made with olive oil and shea but­ter in a part­ner­ship with a com­pany called Ananke Cosmetics.

• Lasolana2