Choco-locate iPhone app helps you find your favourite sweets

TORONTO – Chocolate lovers and Easter shoppers alike are in for a treat with a new iPhone app that helps you hone in on the chocolate of your choice.

The app is called “Choco-locate” and helps users track down chocolate based on their preferences. You can search artisan, fair trade, raw, vegan, organic…or any of the above, according to the tool’s producer, Lalita Krishna.

“Once you’re in the chocolate store, the app will give you the top four chocolates within that store,” says Krishna. “The top four are based on interviews with the store owners or with user reviews.”

So far the application lists over one hundred of the top chocolate shops in Toronto, Hamilton, the Niagara region, Stratford, Ottawa and Vancouver in Canada, with Montreal listings coming soon. Choco-locate is also used in Seattle, with New York City and San Francisco next on Krishna’s destination wish list.

The app is free, and downloadable from iTunes here with about 1,100 downloads to date. Weekly deals and listings of chocolate events in your area are provided, as well as other food or wine pairings recommended by chocolatiers, and alerts of any specials being offered.

Get breaking National news

Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won't miss a trending story.

Sign up for breaking National newsletter Get Started

By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Currently in Toronto, if a user visits Stubbe’s pastry shop, they get a free truffle just for showing the Choco-locate app on their phone.

Odile Chocolat is also offering a free chocolate to users, but only until the end of Easter. However, new promotions and stores are featured every week.

“The app is very user-based,” says Krishna. “It is trying to create a chocolate community and getting people talking about chocolate.”

The Choco-locate app is part of a project, including a website and documentary called Semisweet: Life in Chocolate set to air in June 2012.

“Chocolate has become such a big fad around the world and we’re a bit slow catching up in some ways,” says Krishna. “People love chocolate, and we needed to inform people a little more about where chocolate comes from and what the stories are around chocolate.”

You can view the documentary trailer here, and stay tuned for Krishna’s future plans to promote chocolate tourism in Toronto and North America.

“I didn’t start this project thinking ‘I’m crazy about chocolate,’ but I have met people who are absolutely nuts,” explains Krishna. “They say ‘I have to have my chocolate fix, and it’s almost an addiction.’ They say ‘you’re actually selling drugs.’ And I say, you know, this is a good kind of drug.”