0/5

Garth wins Recipe to Riches

A chocolate-coated popcorn recipe has won a 35 year old from Victoria $100,000 in TEN's reality series finale.

R2R FinaleComputer games managing director Garth Midgley has won the inaugural Recipe To Riches title with his chocolate-coated popcorn recipe.

The 35-year-old from Clarinda, Victoria, defeated Vicki Cameron-Smith’s (QLD) chocolate sandwich cookies and Connie Tavella’s (NSW) croquettes in a final three showdown.

His Chocorn sold out in more of the 900 Woolworths stores nationally than any other product in the series, winning him $100,000 and a distribution offer from Woolworths.

“I’m so excited that I’m now able to share Chocorn and all of its flavours with the whole of Australia. And I’m excited by the prospect of working with Woolworths and their product development team on Chocorn,” he said.

“This is like my childhood Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory dreams come true.

“I must have made millions of pieces of Chocorn, tried out thousands of flavour combinations and put it through hundreds of focus group tests with friends and family to get the base recipe and all of the different flavours just right.”

Judge Carolyn Creswell from Carman’s Fine Foods owner said: “Garth winning is what the show is truly all about. It’s seeing someone’s dream come true.

“I love that this product is pure innovation. A recipe that didn’t exist, 10 years of sweat and tears, almost throwing it all away six months ago when nothing had happened and now becoming the next Australian iconic food brand. I’m over the moon for him and his exciting journey ahead.”

The TEN series has not set the ratings on fire, but the products have been well received in Woolworths stores with positive comments from the sponsor.

Network TEN Head of Entertainment and Factual Programming, Stephen Tate, said of the Canadian-based format, “True innovation is rare in television these days. This has been an Australian first. Watch the show and taste the recipe the next day. Recipe To Riches has been the tastiest show we have ever made.”

Garths’s Chocorn will hit Woolworths stores nationwide in the new year.

20 Responses

  1. How many people here have actually tried both the Cadbury’s chocolate popcorn and Garth’s? I have, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Garth’s is far superior to Cadbury’s. The dark chocolate variety in particular is an excellent product, but all three flavours are very tasty – certainly much more so than the Cadbury’s product. When the only local store not to sell out of the product put it on sale a week ago for $3 a box, I bought the remainder of the stock (7 boxes) – it really is that good.

    Comparing Garth’s product to the Cadbury’s one is akin to comparing a Cherry Ripe to a Coles Cherry Chunk or whatever they call their version (even though the Cadbury’s chocolate popcorn isn’t bad).

  2. So a product already produced by Cadbury wins??? And either Woolworths took the Cadbury product off the shelves because of the show, or they have sold out daily in stores, cos they’re always all gone when i walk down the aisle.

  3. What was the formula used?

    I missed the replay today and the catch-up on tenplay starts with the first half of the program missed, very odd. There is another replay tomorrow.

  4. @bettestreep2008, excellent suggestion re putting it in a block with Jamie Oliver programming. There was no way in hell that it was going to rate against X-Factor and DWTS.

  5. I also don’t understand why the product isn’t coming out until new year when the series was recorded at the beginning of this year. Not that I’ll be buying any, trying to pitch chocolate popcorn at the same price as a box of Lindt chocolates just doesn’t cut it. Oh and “10 years in development”…seriously! I ate chocolate popcorn at Greater Union years ago.

    Despite what some have said I still think it was dragged out too long but yes it could have been worse and agree that there was no transparency on the figures used to decide the winner.

    Overall good series but definitely tweaks required and better pricing next year.

  6. Chocolate covered popcorn?! What next, caramel covered popcorn…oh, hang on!

    Just thought the winner should be for something new and unique but yes, congrats to him.

  7. @Kimbeth:for Woolies, this show was about exposure not so much the actual product sales and @Bettestreep2008:agreed. I hope really hope sometimes that TEN take notice of the comments on this site.

  8. Actually watched it last night and was impressed that the finale was about 65 minutes long.

    No ‘let’s spend 10 minutes looking at your ‘journey’ moments , no drawn out ‘we’ll announce the winner after this 10th commercial break’ and definitely no ‘here’s a sneak preview of ‘sarah murdoch destroying another ten program’ .

    I guess this is why some finales should be pre-recorded… so the editors can make sure all the padding and unnecessary stuff is edited out.

    I think it should come back next year – and put in the Jamie Oliver Thursday 7.30pm slot and not up against powerhouse programs like Voice, X factor, The Block etc.

    This is what ruined a lot of Ten’s reality programs this year – appalling scheduling.

  9. Why couldn’t woolworths have had this product ready to sell immediately given that the final was pre-recorded? I thought the explanation of how the winner was determined was very vague. Why no sales info for each finalist? Absolutely no transparency. I’m sure woolies made their decision based on other factors that may not be so measurable but I guess we will never know.

  10. @davodavo6666: You left out “have the highest mark-up”.

    “Garths’s Chocorn will hit Woolworths stores nationwide in the new year.”

    Bzzzt, fail, you’ve just made the Microsoft mistake.

    What’s the point of creating the buzz, having the big product reveal, then announcing ‘it’ll be available in the future, sometime, maybe in a couple of months, we can’t say exactly when – but, in the meantime don’t forget about us or get hooked on the competitor’s product’?

  11. I watched the show a few times. I thought it was pretty good, I liked the judges and the format. It is innovative and has a good outcome for each of the winners. I hope it returns and isn’t just a one-off.

  12. @chasingvegas: Woolworths have been selling that too for a few months now, both last week and the week Chocorn was released, Woolworths had it on sale for $1.99. Woolworths also had massive bags of chocolate popcorn selling at Christmas time last year, although I cannot recall the manufacturer, I think it was a little brand.

    I was expecting either the Crocs or Sweet Billies to win, but good luck to the winner. Here’s hoping that now this is a standard product it will drive the price down significantly lower than the original $7.99.

  13. How odd, the product that would be the cheapest to make, easyest to store and transport and the one Woolies invested in machinery to produce won using their secret winner calculation (% of sold). Hmmmm not suspicious. Give us the data!

  14. I actually hope ten return this next year because it’s a good format but it does need some tweaks to make it bigger and better. It now has an audience so try to find new people next yr

Leave a Reply