A Worthing family with a “chocolate obsession” has turned its passion into a business and has just launched Pachanka chocolate craft kits.

Suzanne James, partner Carlos Mendez and their 13-year-old daughter Oiana launched Pachanka at the speciality fine food trade show in Olympia and aim to enable people to make fine chocolate at home from scratch.

The two craft kits, Finest Colombian Chocolate Craft Kit and Finest Madagascan Chocolate Craft Kit, use products from Casa Luker in Colombia and Chocolat Madagascar and Suzanne says the chocolate is very easy to make.

Each kit contains ingredients to make up to 400 grams of fine chocolate and four cups of Aztec drinking chocolate, and budding chocolate makers can customise their chocolate by adding dried fruit, nuts, spices or chillies.

“It tastes amazing and is aimed at any age group from a children's party, girls’ night in or for a budding chef who just wants to experiment with authentic ingredients,” Suzanne adds.

“We feel our products are very current and fit in with the craft beer movement, the Great British Bake Off trend, and people who want to know more about where their food is coming from.”

Suzanne began dabbling in making raw chocolate after suffering from thyroid problems and wanted to create a healthier chocolate she could enjoy.

Husband Carlos, then a teacher, helped and discovered he was “a natural chocolate maker”. “We enjoyed the excitement of discovering raw ingredients and turning them into fine chocolates,” says Suzanne. “We still remember how much fun we had experimenting with the raw materials and how interesting the beans looked. We remember wondering how to use these exotic ingredients to make a chocolate bar. It was an exciting and sensory journey when we first held real cacao and smelled the delicious deep chocolaty aroma of cacao paste. We still can remember the first time we roasted a small batch of beans in the oven and how the kitchen smelled like a hundred brownies were baking.

“The more chocolate we made, the more we could not believe how many flavours we could create. It became an obsession.”

They launched their first company Raw Goodies five years ago from their then home in Brighton, winning awards from the Academy of Chocolate and the Great Taste Awards, and moved to Worthing three years ago, where they built a chocolate workshop in their back garden.

“We have launched the Pachanka craft kits because I really wanted people to experience making chocolate themselves,” says Suzanne. A former illustrator, she has designed the illustrations on the kit instructions, while the packaging and logo were designed by Worthing-based designer Jon May.

Suzanne adds, “It’s important to us that we work ethically, and we would ultimately like to work with a smaller company to create a specific cocoa bean for our company.”

Pachanka Finest Colombian Chocolate Craft Kit, £20, and Finest Madagascan Chocolate Craft Kit, £22, are available online at pachanka.co.uk.