Johnty has been destined for the culinary world since he wrote his first recipe from scratch at the age of 7 and delivered a speech about his dream to one day own a restaurant. Before he had completed primary school he was equally as competent at cooking dinner for the family as he was baking goods for a special occasion.
After basic qualifications in both cookery and bakery, his career saw him venturing from a chef working in fine dining, to a patisserie specialist, and finally a chocolatier winning a chocolate based culinary competition along the way. It was at this moment he felt ready to begin working on producing his own creations for sale.
Armed with a plethora of formal training including studying abroad at Mellissa coppel's chocolate school in Las vegas, completing courses on the art of dragee making and contemporary bonbon production, Johnty first launched Lucid in 2020 selling a range of six bean-to-bar chocolate bars. Since then, the business has grown from strength to strength, and with the help of medals from five seperate independent awards ceremonies, he now stands tall as one of New Zealand's most successful chocolate makers.
Throughout his teenage years Johnty became obsessed with various art forms, in particular design and painting with which he achieved an NZQA scholarship for his work in year 13. Before committing to the culinary pathway Johnty studied part time at Massey's College of Creative Arts to complete papers on topics such as design, photography, fine arts and culture.
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This creative background oozes into Lucid and its place in the craft chocolate world. The approach to chocolate making at its roots is very much from an arts background, and Johnty hopes to explore and share this with you more over time.
