Residents Enjoyed A Sweet Idea On World Chocolate Day

9th July 2019

We enjoyed an extra special time reminiscing to Celebrate World Chocolate Day.

Movilla House recreated rare vintage chocolate bars by using images provided by Rowntrees and they wrote to Cadbury’s who provided vintage chocolate images. Movilla then used the help of local printing company GPS Colour Graphics to digitally print the labels and boxes.

Movilla Houses’s Activities Co-ordinatior, Georgie Bell then used the chocolate bars, boxes and images from the past 100 years to ask residents to say which was their favourite.

“We often get residents remembering things from childhood or about their mother or grandmother,” she says. “A very common reaction is people saying things like ‘that was my mum’s favourite chocolate’.”

Tracey Anderson, Home Manager commented “it's wonderful to see very vivid memories from childhood being recalled”, these can be sparked by interacting with certain objects, she said.

“Even when the memory of the session fades, the positive impact on the person’s mood may stay, and can also give families and carers an opportunity to interact with people in a positive way,” she adds.

Of course it would not be fair to talk about fond memories of chocolate without have some to eat. So residents were treated to a chocolate tasting afternoon!

We had numerous different varieties including very rich dark, white, milk chocolate and chocolate suitable for diabetics. As we gave each sample of chocolate to the residents we asked them to smell for any clues as to what the ingredients could be and to look at the chocolate to distinguish the colour. After each tasting we made sure the residents had a sip of water to clear their palette!

It was unanimous that the two favourites were both dark chocolate, one flavoured with lavender and one flavoured with lemon cardamom. The least favourite was dark chocolate flavoured with chilli.

One resident commented, “Gosh I never knew there were some many different varieties to choose from, a real eye opener.”