Meat-flavoured chocolate might not be everyone's idea of delicious, but a Kiwi chocolatier claims her new salami-tinged treats are just that.
Sweet maker Dr Hanna Frederick has developed venison chocolate truffles to feed dozens of meat lovers at this year's Meat Industry Association conference.
Made from a blend of dark chocolate and ground-up salty dried meat, the morsels, shaped like tiny sausages, have a "delicious" salami aftertaste, she says.
"I think many people would say it's just too weird mixing meat with chocolate, but they actually go together amazingly well," Frederick says.
"There's this smoky taste to start, then a strong chocolate flavour comes in, and at the end you have this wonderful taste of salami."
She says the snack, being served as a starter to 150 people at the conference, has proven a hit with men "who can't get enough of it", but admits women have been "quieter" in expressing approval.
"Women tend to love their chocolate more fruity, more feminine, and I guess meat doesn't have that feel to it."
This is just the latest in a string of quirky creations from Frederick, a Hungarian-born food chemist who abandoned a corporate career to make chocolate.
She has already made headlines by feeding beer-flavoured chocolate to brewers and recycled orange peel-chocolate to waste management specialists.
In February, she released her most risque flavour yet, a chocolate injected with Tongkat Ali, a potent herb from South-east Asia which is claimed to stimulate testosterone production in men.
It is not a substitute for Viagra, but it will deliver a "small but noticeable" aphrodisiac effect, she says.
The Meat Industry Association conference is being held in Auckland next Sunday and Monday.
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