COCOVELLE WAS DEVELOPED JOINTLY BY HUSBAND-WIFE SUPER TEAM GARTH & FOTINI. SINCE SILKY'S CONCEPTION IN MID-2014, COCOVELLE HAS COME A LONG WAY FROM RECIPE TO REALISATION.
GARTH MIDGLEY
Founder & Managing Director
A lover of food and cooking from a young age, experimenting in the kitchen was only natural to answer his burning childhood curiosities like "Why don't we mix cordial syrups with milk?"
Inventing Chocorn in 2003, it wasn't until 10 years on in 2013 that the perfect opportunity came along to see his dream of seeing Chocorn hit the shelves finally come true when he won the inaugural season of Channel Ten's 'Recipe to Riches', paving the way for his break in the food industry. Now answering the question "Why don't we have a cafe-style creamy coconut drink along-side our lattes and hot chocolates?" CocoVelle is Garth's first food invention to be released following the TV show. With a bunch of other food inventions already waiting in the wings and surely more still exciting recipes to be discovered, he's looking forward to bringing more great food inventions out for years to come.
FOTINI IOANNIDIS
Product & Production Manager
There's more to releasing a new food product than just making some magic and mess in the kitchen. With all these ideas flying around, someone has to keep their feet firmly planted on the ground. Garth's number one food taster, and possibly his harshest critic, Fotini is the front-line of all the new food inventions being dreamed up. The backbone of operations, Fotini whisks and mixes her magic behind the scenes to make it all possible and bring Garth's recipes to life. Beyond keeping Garth's ongoing food creations in check, she's responsible for all aspects of production - from branding to sourcing CocoVelle's premium ingredients and coordinating manufacturing and sales.
IT'S BEEN A ROLLER-COASTER RIDE GETTING COCOVELLE TO THE POINT THAT IT IS TODAY.
HERE'S A SNAP-SHOT OF THE JOURNEY WE'LL NEVER FORGET.
November 2013
GARTH'S LATEST FOOD INVENTION
Garth, a coffee and dark chocolate enthusiast, develops the CocoVelle recipe during one of his frequent home food experiments. His food obsession leads him to conduct dozens of product tests over the next 4 weeks, refining the recipe until he is completely content with the balance of flavours, at which point he proudly reveals the product to Fotini. Together they relish in the superb taste every evening.
February 2014
A PROMISE MADE
Over the next month, Garth roughs up a business plan, budget and some basic design concepts, and decides to present them to Fotini one night during an evening beach stroll. She can hardly contain her excitement! They see no other alternative for this amazing gift and opportunity - CocoVelle must come out! Together they commit themselves to the enormous task ahead of releasing CocoVelle into the world.
March 2014
THE QUESTION ON EVERYONE'S LIPS
Garth’s coffee roaster friends offer to batch up some samples of CocoVelle to trial in two popular Melbourne cafes. The results are overwhelmingly positive - Baristas and customers love the taste, but there's an unexpected question on everyone's lips: "Is the flavour synthetic?" Cafe customers are finding it hard to believe that what they're drinking is made predominately of REAL coconut! It becomes clear that informing people of CocoVelle's high-quality, all-natural ingredients will need to be an important feature of their launch.
May 2016
COCOVELLE OFFICIAL LAUNCH
It's been two-and-a-half years since the idea for CocoVelle was born. After so long behind closed doors, there are no words to express Garth and Fotini's relief and joy when CocoVelle is finally manufactured and unvelied to the public, with a national tour of cafes commencing right here in Melbourne. CocoVelle - the delicious and ground-breaking new drink made from REAL coconut - becomes available to cafes nationally, carving an entirely new category on beverage menus.
December 2013
REVEAL & SURPRISE
Family and friends dropping by see Garth and Fotini sipping on a mysterious looking beverage and are naturally curious to have a taste. Their reaction is always contemplative silence, followed by wide-eyes and murmurs of delight! Soon enough, instead of a resounding “yes, please” to Garth's usual question “Would you like a tea or coffee”, the response becomes: “Actually, can I have a CocoVelle?”
January 2014
THIS MIGHT HAVE LEGS
Garth takes a jar of his new drink to share with friends at his local roastery. Why isn’t this product already out, they muse? The taste is far superior to many other powdered beverage products out there. In their opinion, cafes and consumers would go nuts for CocoVelle! Garth leaves with his bag of freshly roasted coffee beans and some newly seeded ideas...A little research is in order.
June 2014
THINGS GET SERIOUS
Fotini and Garth are working overtime in their day jobs, and making any meaningful progress on their massive new undertaking is proving difficult. Next month they’re also heading to Europe to get married and will be away for 3 months! Fotini makes the brave decision to go part time at her marketing job to help drive their project forward. The move pays off; within weeks they've made contact with important partners who will play a key role in the making of CocoVelle.
October 2014
INTO OVERDRIVE
Upon returning from their honeymoon, progress dials up to 10: Fotini gets stuck into an abyss of budgeting, business forecasting and production scheduling. Months of artistic exploration culminate into a beautiful art-deco brand style and polished packaging designs. With every email exchange and meeting comes a new revelation or piece of advice, which though welcome, demands countless revisions to the original plan. After over a year of full time preparations, CocoVelle's market release is finally scheduled...
THE CREATORS
THE JOURNEY
OUR ETHOS
WE HAVE AMBITIOUS DREAMS FOR COCOVELLE & WOULD LOVE TO ONE DAY SEE IT BEING ENJOYED BY PEOPLE ALL AROUND THE WORLD. THOUGH WHATEVER FATE HAS IN STORE FOR US, THE PRINCIPALS THAT GUIDE US WILL NEVER CHANGE.
1
Highest
Standards
Silky Foods is a family run business, and the products we create are like our kids! There's no room for shortcuts, and no excuse for putting in anything less than 110%, no exceptions. The complete satisfaction of our customers is our ultimate goal, inspiring us to strive for perfection and encouraging us to stay true to our high personal standards for quality. With this in mind, we take our time to carefully consider every detail, giving us the piece of mind that the outcome of any decision is the result of only our best personal efforts.
2
Food We're Proud to Share
Our policy is that we should only ever release products that we ourselves love to eat and drink and that we'd recommend to our friends and family. So we're happy to say that we absolutely adore CocoVelle! We put this down to the high-quality, all-natural ingredients that we've used and the delicate balance of flavours that we spent years tweaking. Additionally, every aspect of CocoVelle - from the logo to the little stickers on our samples - has been created with so much passion and attention-to-detail that we occassionally drive ourselves crazy! After all this hard work though, we're thankful to have created a product which we're incredibly proud to share with loved ones, and the entire world.
3
Top-Notch Partners
We place extremely high expectations on ourselves to conduct business honestly, professionally and to the best of our ability, so naturally we look for partners who share the same ethos and, like us, are passionate about what they do. It might seem crazy to be passionate about something like sugar or coconut milk, but our special suppliers are seriously fanatical about their ingredients. Our screening process when selecting partners is tough so that we can ensure that quality is never compromised. We honestly believe this approach will relate to good relationships and consistently the best-tasting CocoVelle for our fans.