Auckland’s Elemental Cooking School is buzzing with excitement as it hosts the first-ever Mousse Masters Grand Final. This special event brings together top chefs from around Aotearoa and a special guest from Papua New Guinea.

The competition encourages creativity within the food world, featuring nine professional chefs and three promising young chefs presenting their mousse creations, using Weave Cacao’s unique Pacific couverture chocolate from Papua New Guinea.

Among the judges is Sperian Kapia, a lead cacao farmer from the Mupa community in East Sepik, where 50 per cent of Weave Cacao’s beans are sourced.

For Kapia, the occasion is significant - he is tasting mousse for the first time.

“I didn’t know anything about mousse,” he tells PMN News. “It will be the first time and it’s a story to take back home. I’m so proud that it will be from my beans, the cocoa beans that I supply.”

Kapia describes the experience as a unique privilege. “It's something different in the industry…to see our cacao from our very remote community in the Pacific region to be celebrated in Auckland today in the boutique market through Weave cacao. That's the greatest privilege ever.”

Entry by Isabelle Lee - Mousse Masters Student Finalist. Photo/Supplied

Impact on community

Beyond personal pride, the event offers tangible benefits for his community. Kapia says that exposure to the boutique market inspires local farmers and boosts their confidence in the quality and value of their cacao.

“With the connections that we have now, it motivates the farmers that they can see the future of what they're doing,” he says. “It gives more confidence to us because there's a bigger picture behind that in what we are producing from our local community.

He adds, “A new experience to see a way our cocoa beans can be blended into different products and see it [at] international levels.”

Kapia, who arrived from PNG at 4am on Tuesday, says being part of the inaugural Mousse Masters is a story to share back home.

“If one of the judges can say this is the best mousse…the primary product of that mousse comes from our area. That's our pride.

“That's the story we want to tell our farmers - the beans from our sweat, the way we work, and what we produce, has reached that height.”

The judging panel includes legendary chef Peter Gordon, the competition’s ambassador and head judge, food writer and cookbook author Amber Rose, chocolate expert and journalist Luke Owen Smith, and Weave Cacao co-founder Oonagh Browne.

Finalists are from all around Aotearoa New Zealand, with chefs like Ben Chapman (Embra), Robert Cullen (New Zealand International Convention Centre), Maxine Scheckter (Sugar Flour), and Shalvi Mohindra, Head Chocolatier at Cocoa Wild.

Selecting only nine professional chefs proved challenging due to the abundance of outstanding entries that beautifully combined chocolate artistry with Pasifika culture, as stated in a recent announcement.

The judges have been impressed by the quality of submissions from culinary schools in the Promising Young Chef category, including top students from Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand Management Academies, Ara Institute, and Toi-Ohomai.

“The key may lie in how well the recipes represent Pasifika culture - that’s the part I’m really looking forward to,” Gordon says in a statement.

Weave Cacao's Oonagh Browne and Raglan Chocolate's Mike Renfree visiting the Frontier cacao growing village in PNG. Photo/Supplied

The Pro Chef winner will receive an all-expenses paid trip to Papua New Guinea with Gordon and Browne to connect with Weave Cacao's farming communities, learn about their challenges, and experience the bean-to-chocolate process.

This year’s Most Promising Young Chef will win a year’s supply (40kg) of Weave Cacao couverture and a two-day Cacao Intensive Training Course with Browne in Christchurch.

Browne says the competition goes beyond mere chocolate artistry. It is a platform to bring attention to the human story behind the beans.

She says the event connects chefs, consumers, and farmers, helping people understand the care, labour, and skill that go into producing high-quality cacao.

“We want everybody to know the true price so that farming families of the Pacific can thrive through cacao. One happy story through cacao,” Browne says.

Mousse Masters Grand Finalist Ben Chapman's creation. Photo/Supplied

Sperian adds that the Grand Final reflects the collaborative effort of growers, chocolatiers, and chefs working together to celebrate both the product and the people involved.

“We're in the Pacific and we have to work together to understand what we can produce and consume within our region. Understand each other as one big cocoa family from the farming level to the consuming level of the industry…to support the big potential in the region.”

Mousse Masters is presented in partnership with Bidfood, Pacific Trade Invest, Food Writers New Zealand, and Elemental Cooking School.

The Grand Final judging takes place at the Elemental Cooking School from 5pm on Tuesday.