KEY POINTS:
Chocolate chips are proving a winner for a Hamilton-based company -- but it's not the biscuits familiar to generations of New Zealanders.
Thick cut potato chips enrobed in rich milk chocolate are at the forefront of Donovan's Chocolates push into Asian markets.
Mark Donovan of Donovan's Chocolates said a client requested the chocolate potato chip two years ago after seeing something similar in Asia.
"She came back to us and said 'look, can you make this for me' and we were sort of blase about it. Now it's our single biggest export product to Australia," said Donovan.
The "choc-chip" is sold under a private label in Australian duty-free stores, specifically targeted at the Asian market.
Donovan said they had originally made the assumption their best selling product in New Zealand - dark chocolate coated ginger - would also do well in Asia.
"Nup - we just about can't give it away up there," he said.
After trying a range of flavours, the dark chocolate coated coffee beans or apricots -- "a little bit tart and a little bit bitter" -- were well accepted, said Donovan.
Plus, those choc-coated chips.
"It's got a savoury, sweet combo to it, which is a really peculiar taste and honestly when I first heard of it I thought 'there's no way anyone will ever buy that'.
"But I tell you what, we take them to every dinner party now because they are so popular."
Currently only five per cent of Donovan's 250 tonne annual production is heading offshore, but they are using the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise China retail trade development project to break into China.
While the company is making "small steps" into the Chinese market, Donovan said a distributor seeing their product in Hong Kong resulted in a sizeable order bound for Singapore.
It is all part of a strategy which has seen the company grow from a 75 sq m site with four staff when Donovan's parents bought it as a going concern in 1991, to a 1800 sq m factory and cafe complex employing 24 fulltime staff.
Donovan said the cafe is the perfect testing ground to try out new products on loyal customers who aren't afraid to tell them if they are doing a good or bad job.
