With 170 years of experience, Cacao Barry expertly produces one of the finest-grade chocolate for the restaurant and confectionery industries. The company source cocoa from selected countries and plantations around the globe to ensure that each of its chocolate flavours has a distinctive taste profile.
To preserve the flavour and quality of its premium chocolate, Cacao Barry decided to upgrade its cardboard packaging to airtight foil bags and tasked Design Bridge to develop the new packs.
“Branding the new bags presented an opportunity to celebrate the remarkable stories behind the rich flavours, as well as the pioneering spirit of the company’s founder, the world’s first chocolate connoisseur,” said Design Bridge in their release.
To help Cacao Barry talk expertly about flavour notes, the design house took inspiration from founder, Charles Barry’s journey to Africa, in 1842, in which he discovered the variety and complexities of flavour within cocoa beans from different plantations. This inspired them to create a ‘periodic table of flavour’ to organise and chart the many complex flavour notes and experiences across the range of chocolate and cocoa products.
“We divided the periodic table up into multiple categories, including Flora, Fruit and Botanicals & Vegetals, and sought out artists with distinctly different illustration styles to collaborate with. We used watercolour artist, Alwyn Gillespie to paint the fruit imagery and fine art x-ray photographer, Steven N. Meyer to create the floral elements. 
We also delved into the archives of the Peter H.Raven Library at the Missouri Botanical Garden for the botanical and vegetal imagery. Carefully sourced photography depicts the additional sugar and spice flavours and we used etchings and wood-cut imagery to represent the cocoa. We created a spectrum of hand drawn charcoal lines to help communicate the ‘roast levels’ within the product range, for the first time.”
Combining the beautiful illustrations from their periodic table enabled Design Bridge to create individual compositions to convey the aromatic notes within each delicate and refined variant. This design system introduces a clear balance of information, so that Cacao Barry can articulate any flavour combination and individual taste profile, no matter how complex.
For a premium finish they layered the eclectic illustrations in both matt and gloss varnish and used the foil base material to create subtle patterns and textures, which helped give a different look and feel to each of the Origine, Plantation and Or Noir ranges.
Drawing from the principles of wine and terroir, the result helps high-end chefs to create and define elaborate flavour profiles and experiences with each of their creations. By naming specific people and places, geology and climate, processes and techniques, Design Bridge have changed the tone and type of conversations to be had with chefs.
“It’s a collection that celebrates the diversity of flavour and origin, fuelling the connoisseur’s imagination.”
Source: Design Bridge
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