Chocolate Dreams Finalists Announced!

If you’ve ever dreamt of being Willy Wonka for a day and creating your own chocolate bar, then it’s time to let your imagination run wild as Wellington Chocolate Factory’s Chocolate Dreams returns for 2024, and this year it’s open to all ages!

Chocolate Dreams gives aspiring chocolate makers the chance to create a chocolate flavour and design a wrapper for their bar.

This year, after demand from ‘big kids’ to enter in 2020, Chocolate Dreams is open to everyone, with three categories:

• Junior (ages 5 - 12)
• Teen (ages 13 - 17)
• Open (ages 18 or over)

Entries open on 4 July and close at 5 pm on 31 July. To enter, upload your chocolate bar wrapper design, flavour concept and chocolate bar name.

If you're in Wellington, stop by our Eva St factory's "Imagination Station" to work on your design in person.

A short list of entrants’ flavours and wrappers will be decided by public vote in August before a panel of celebrity judges assess the finalists' entries. Category winners will be announced in September at an event at WCF, where the Supreme Winner will also be crowned.

Chocolate Dreams 2024 has been made possible by the generous support of Wētā Workshop, Wellington Cable Car, Zealandia and Space Place.

Each category winner receives:

• 2 return airfares to Wellington for each of the Category winners.
• 1 night's accommodation for two for each of the Category winners.
• Tickets for experiences at WCF, Weta, Zealandia, Cable Car and Space Place for two people per Category winner.
• 1 year's worth of WCF chocolate for each category winner (52 bars).

The Supreme Winner will receive the following in addition to the ‘Category Winner’ prize:

• The chance to hand-make (and keep!) 50 bars of their own bar at the WCF with help from the WCF team.
• WCF will make a full batch of the Supreme Winner's bar (500 bars) to sell via our webstore.

Looking for inspiration? Check out the winning bar from 2020's competition! If you register your interest we'll email you tips and ideas throughout the competition!

What goes into making the coolest art?

Watch the video above to hear from the incredibly talented Gina Kiel on what she thinks about when designing a Wellington Chocolate Factory wrapper!

Getting ready to design your bar? Our standard wrapper is 20cm wide by 25cm tall. Below is the image of where the folds are for reference - your design should cover the entire wrapper - not just the front. 

 

Want to know more about the chocolate making process? Check out the series of video from our founder, Gabe Davidson. 

Where does cocoa come from?

In this video, Gabe takes us through where cocoa comes from and talks about one of our most amazing adventures to get ahold of this incredible ingredient.

How do we make chocolate at the Wellington Chocolate Factory?

In this video, Gabe shows us how we make chocolate at the Wellington Chocolate Factory. It’s a lot of work, but so, so worth it!

How do we put flavours in the chocolate and make it into bars?

In this video, Gabe walks us through the tempering process, where we make our chocolate shine and snap beautifully! He also tells us the different ways we can put other flavours into the chocolate!

Chocolate Dreams: Terms & Conditions

Definitions

• ‘WCF’ means The Press Ltd t/a Wellington Chocolate Factory.
• ‘The Competition’ is the Chocolate Dreams competition, administered by WCF.
• The ‘Supreme Winner’ is the person who submitted the winning entry.
• The ‘Category Finalists’ are the people who made the top 3 entries in each category.
• The ‘Category Winners’ are the people who are the top entries in each category.
• ‘Immediate Families’ include spouses, grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren, whether by marriage, past marriages, remarriage, adoption, cohabitation or other family extension.
• “Intellectual Property Rights” means any trade marks, copyright, moral rights, performer’s rights, confidential information, trade secrets and all or any other intellectual or industrial property rights, both registered and unregistered anywhere in the world, including any renewals and extensions and including any such rights discovered or invented after the date of these Terms and Conditions.

Entry

Chocolate Dreams will have three categories for 2024:

• Junior, ages 5 - 12
• Teen, ages 13 - 17
• Open - ages 18 years and over. 

Entry is open to all people living in New Zealand. For the ‘Teen’ and ‘Junior’ categories permission of a Parent or Legal Guardian is required to enter. This competition is open to NZ residents and NZ citizens only.

Staff of WCF and their Immediate Families are not permitted to enter the competition.

Register to enter on the www.wcf.co.nz website.

Entries close at 5:00pm on 31 July, 2024. Entries submitted after this date will not be accepted.

For an entry to be accepted, it must include the following:

• The entrant’s name and contact details.
• A flavour concept. 
• A chocolate bar name.
• A wrapper design. 
• You may enter more than once with a different flavour and wrapper design each time.
• Each entry must be made separately.

Judging

• The chocolate that will be used in producing the winning chocolate bar is the 50% WCF milk chocolate.
• WCF will announce the Top 5 finalists in each category in early August 2024. 
• Public voting (with voting terms and conditions as decided by WCF at its discretion) will be open for 10 days in August.
• The Top 3 finalists in each category (9 total entries), as judged by New Zealanders, will be announced in August 2024.
• A panel of judges selected by WCF will judge the finalist entries to decide the Winner. 
• The judging criteria are: flavour profile, taste and visual creativity.
• The Winner will be announced in September 2024. 
• All judges' decisions are final, and no correspondence will be entered into regarding these decisions.
• WCF reserves the right to amend any of the criteria at any time.

Prizes

The ‘Supreme Winner’ is the person who submitted the winning entry.

The ‘Category Winners’ are the persons who are the top entries in each category.

The Category Winners will receive the following prize:

• 2 return airfares for each of the Category winners.
• 1 night's accommodation for two for each of the Category winners.
• Tickets for experiences at WCF, Weta, Zelandia, Cable Car, Space Place and Te Papa for two people per Category winner.
• 1 year's worth of WCF chocolate for each category winner (52 bars).

The Supreme Winner will receive the following prize in addition to the ‘Category Winner’ prize

• Hand-make (and keep!) 50 bars of their own bar at the WCF with help from the WCF team.
• WCF will make a full batch of the Supreme Winner's bar (500 bars) to sell via our webstore.

WCF will notify you if you are a Category Winner or the Supreme Winner. If you fail to respond and claim your prize within 1 week of being notified, we reserve the right to forfeit your prize and your claim will be invalid.

Additional Terms

The Winner must be available to travel to Wellington between September 26, 2024 and October 1, 2024.

Flights and accommodation will be arranged and booked by WCF and its promotional partners. While WCF will try to accommodate the Winner’s request as to time and dates of the flights and accommodation, WCF reserves the right to make any final decision regarding bookings.

WCF is not liable for any additional costs that the Winner and their family/guests may incur as a result of travel.

The Winner and their family/guests are responsible for their own health and safety during the travel and their stay in Wellington, and any travel and stay is at their own risk.

WCF reserves the right to disqualify a Category Winner or the Supreme Winner from the competition or receiving a prize (without liability or compensation) if the Category Winner or the Supreme Winner or their family/guests, in WCF’s opinion (which shall be final), conducts themselves in a way which:

• exposes them or others to any medical, security, safety or other risk whatsoever (including being intoxicated or abusive in any way);  
• is otherwise inappropriate or contrary to the spirit or intention of the competition;
• or might bring WCF into disrepute or affect the reputation of the competition.

In the event that a Category Winner or the Supreme Winner is disqualified, WCF reserves the right to select another entrant to receive the prize.

The Category Winner and the Supreme Winner and their family/guests agree to WCF using their names and photos for promotional purposes.

No prize or part of a prize can be transferred to another person.

No prize or part of a prize is exchangeable for cash, tickets or services. 

If for any reason any element of the competition cannot be fulfilled due to current any unforeseen events, WCF reserves the right to:

• amend or modify these Terms and Conditions at its discretion; or 
• to cancel the competition. 

WCF shall not be liable to any entrant in such circumstances outlined in the above clause.

By submitting an entry to the “Chocolate Dreams” competition, the entrant agrees to transfer ownership of their Intellectual Property Rights in the entry to the Wellington Chocolate Factory. This includes the name, flavour, and the artwork. WCF reserves the right to use these for any purposes WCF deems appropriate, including but not limited to chocolate production, publicity and marketing materials. You warrant that your entry:

will not infringe the Intellectual Property Rights, privacy or any other rights of any third party;

will not contain anything which is untrue, defamatory, obscene, indecent, harassing or threatening;

do not violate any applicable law or regulation (including any laws regarding anti-discrimination or false advertising);

are not obscene or pornographic;

do not, to the best of the your knowledge, contain any viruses or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information;

are free from any encumbrances such that we may use the entry in accordance with and in the manner set out in these Terms and Conditions.

• Unless otherwise stated, Competition entries will not be returned to you.
• Participation in the competition is deemed to be acceptance of these Terms and Conditions.
• If the Category Winner or the Supreme Winner do not accept these Terms and Conditions, their prize will be forfeited.

Acceptance

• Participation in the competition is deemed to be acceptance of these Terms and Conditions.
• If the Category Winner or the Supreme Winner do not accept these Terms and Conditions, their prize will be forfeited.