Our Story...

Kevin Reay - Founder & Owner

Kevin Reay is an innovative, creative chocolatier and pâtissière who is at a very exciting stage of his career in the chocolate and pastry industry. Kevin’s passion for his craft was born from a curiosity and love for chocolate and has now seen world wide recognition for flavour and creativity. Kevin has built up a strong reputation for a winning balance of flavour and quality. He creates chocolates that are original, daring and sometimes rash! Working as a true artisan, Kevin and his team make everything by hand in small batches and source the finest ingredients from around the world. Since launching The Canny Chocolate Co. in 2020 Kevin has been innovating products that that have earned him the reputation he has today.

Training & Credits

Kevin was fortunate to be invited to train at the prestigious L'École Valrhona just outside of Lyon, the gastronomic capital of France. As well as this, Kevin has trained at the school of Belgian Chocolate in Antwerp, Belgium. He has also trained under leading industry names such as Martin Chiffers, Emma Baravelli, Chris Zammit and Andrew Thwaite. Kevin regularly travels overseas to seek out upcoming trends and techniques in chocolate and pastry. He has been fortunate to travel and work across the world at some incredible destinations where some of the finest cocoa beans are grown. During Kevin’s travels he has immersed himself in the local life, visited the cocoa estates and met with the friendly locals and communities behind the cocoa beans.

Our Ingredients

We source the finest ingredients from around the world

We source the finest ingredients from all over the world. For example, when in season we use fresh ‘Gariguette’ strawberries from France in our pâtisserie. This very old and much-loved French variety is prized for its wonderful scent and intense, sweet, aromatic flavour. They are so fragrant that when in season they perfume the markets in Provence with the most heavenly scent and simply taste fantastic! Our cream comes from France too as it provides us with a higher fat content ultimate contributing to the creaminess and glossy texture of our ganaches. Chocolate is so much more than just a sweet treat to eat. It's a labour of love, curated from the art and science of chocolate making. It is one of the most complicated and technical delicacies ever discovered by man-kind and as such, deserves to be celebrated regularly. We proudly use Valrhona & Callebaut chocolate. Valrhona is a brand has been around since 1922 and is produced in a small village in France called Tain L’Hermitage. For almost a century, this brand has been curating superb quality chocolate with aromatic flavour profiles. It is also B Corp certified. Callebaut is the preferred Belgian chocolate brand of chefs around the world. A story that started in 1911 with the vision of its founder Octaaf Callebaut. A vision that is about taste that pleases many. About workability that achieves great results. And about taking sustainability to heart.