AMANO CHOCOLATE TAKES TOP INTERNATIONAL HONORS

Utah chocolate maker Amano Artisan Chocolate has taken top honors at the 2011 Academy of Chocolate Awards in London. Amano received five awards for its chocolate, including one gold, three silvers (two in the same category) and a bronze as well as a sixth award for packaging. The awards include:

* Gold for Amano Dos Rios palet d’or in Best Filled Chocolate – plain category
* Silver for Amano Dos Rios in the Bean to Bar Best Dark Bar category
* Silver for Amano Chuao also in Bean to Bar Best Dark Bar category
* Silver for Amano Ocumare in Best Milk Bean to Bar category, and
* Bronze for Amano Cinnamon pecan in the Best filled chocolate – nuts category
* Silver for Amano bar packaging

The company will be recognized at the annual Academy of Chocolate awards ceremony on May 18, 2011, at Fortnum & Mason, Piccadilly, London, England.

These awards are the second international competition won by Amano, which in 2009 became the first American chocolate maker to win The Academy of Chocolate’s Gold Medal for the Amano Madagascar Bar along with five other awards.

Amano’s confections are made and sold in the company's Orem factory store by executive pastry chef Rebecca Millican. Before joining Amano, she was an instructor for the Institute for Culinary Education in New York City. She appears regularly on the Food Network’s “Challenge” show in addition to competing as team captain in the National Pastry Championship.

Amano is one of only a handful artisan chocolate makers in the U.S. It sources its beans directly from Madagascar, Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Ecuador and turns it into super-premium chocolate.  For more information, visit http://www.amanochocolate.com.