Barry Callebaut has selected 12 leading pastry chefs and confectioners in the United States to serve as ambassadors for the company’s gourmet chocolate brands – Callebaut, Cacao Barry and Van Leer. The U.S.-based chefs will join more than 100 chefs, pastry chefs, and confectioners from around the world as members of Barry Callebaut’s Chocolate Ambassadors Club – a one-of-a-kind organization designed to educate other gourmet artisans about the fine art of chocolate. Quality, creativity, knowledge of ingredients and process leadership are the main assets of the Chocolate Ambassadors Club, which also helps the company develop new products, product concepts, packaging, recipes and special training programs.
 
 
The ambassadors include the following:  
  • Robert Bennett, executive pastry chef for AHB Foods/The Classic Cake in Cherry Hill, N.J.; 
  • Geoffrey Blount, baking and pastry arts instructor at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, N.C.;
  • Natasha Capper, executive pastry chef at the Piedmont Driving Club in Atlanta; 
  • Erika Dupree Davis, executive pastry chef at The Ponte Vedra Inn and Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.;  
  • Lauren Haas, chef-instructor at Johnson & Wales University’s College of Culinary Arts in Providence, R.I.;  
  • Pascal Janvier, owner of the patisserie and chocolaterie Fleur de Cocoa in Los Gatos, Calif.;
  • Raymond Lammers, executive pastry chef of the Montage Deer Valley resort in Park City, Utah; 
  •  Rocco Lugrine, a pastry chef-instructor at The International Culinary School at The Art Institute of Philadelphia; 
  • Frederic Monti, corporate pastry chef for specialty dessert ingredient company PreGel AMERICA in Concord, N.C.;  
  • Frederic Moreau, executive pastry chef of NoMI restaurant at the Park Hyatt Chicago hotel;
  • Patrick Peeters, chef chocolatier at Godiva Chocolatier and a former technical advisor for Barry Callabaut’s Chocolate Academy;
  • Julian Rose, master chocolatier at Portland, Ore.-based Moonstruck Chocolatier and a former technical advisor for Barry Callebaut’s Chocolate Academy. 
For more information, visit www.barry-callebaut.com.