Mackie’s of Scotland has announced the creation of a new range of chocolate bars.
The Aberdeenshire based company already has successful lines in ice cream and potato crisps but has decided to further diversify in chocolate production.
Kirstin Mackie, development director of Mackie’s said: “We wanted to make something which is preferably not already made here in Scotland, and which uses local, natural ingredients which we could perhaps grow ourselves.
“While it is not possible to grow cocoa beans here in Scotland, we are importing the next best thing, raw cocoa liquor in order to then refine, conch and make our own unique recipe for the final chocolate bars. We’ve strived to have as many Scottish elements as possible including Scottish grown mint, Scottish malt and Mackie’s own honeycomb.”
The new range includes flavours such as traditional milk chocolate, milk chocolate with honeycomb, dark chocolate and dark chocolate with Scottish mint.
The ingredients range from Perthshire mint, Aberdeenshire honey and Ghanaian chocolate.
Mackie’s has entered into the venture with Macintyre Chocolate Systems near Arbroath.
Founded in 1830, Macintyre was acquired by a German coffee machine engineer, Probat, last year. It is part of a group of manufacturers of specialist machinery for the production of cocoa and chocolate.
The product is the first launched since the death of the company’s chairman, Maitland Mackie, earlier this year.
The company is now run by his children Mac Mackie and Kirsten Mackie and Karin Hayhow.
In 2009, Mackie’s diversified into making crisps with varieties such as Aberdeen-Angus and haggis and black pepper now exported to more than 20 countries.
It formed a joint venture with a family of Perthshire potato farmers to form Mackies at Taypack to make the crisps.
The chocolate is available from Tesco and Sainsburys supermarkets in Scotland in the form of 100g bars.
The family-owned firm will officially launch the new chocolate bars today at the inaugural Eat Drink Discover Scotland food show at the Royal Highland Centre at Ingliston.