UK’s top chocolate taster forced to quit on doctors’ orders

The UK’s most eminent chocolate taster has been forced to give up his sweet £30,000-a-year job because it’s playing havoc with his health.

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Angus Kennedy, 47, who tastes chocolate for confectioners including Mars and Nestle, put on two stone and has developed dangerously high cholesterol after being in his dream job for two years.

Kennedy’s keen tastebuds have been relied upon by chocolatiers since 2010 and he also edits a confectionary trade journal, Kennedy’s Confection. But doctors have warned that if he carries on eating chocolate all day every day, he risks a heart attack. He’s also aiming to shrink down from 13 and a half stone to his normal 11 and a half, which has involved cutting all chocolate from his diet.

"Eating chocolate for a living really was the dream job. I was given a Golden Ticket to sample the world's craziest, tastiest new goodies and review them in the magazine,” Kennedy said.

"The only problem with eating chocolate from nine to five, of course, is the predictable weight gain and high cholesterol.

"In the last couple of years, I've put on some considerable weight and a recent check-up showed my arteries were far from fighting fit.

"It was with regret that I stepped down from the magazine to concentrate on a less harmful - but certainly less sweet - career."

Dubbed ‘Willy Wonka’, Kenndy has been known to eat 3lbs of sweet goodies (around 25 Crème Eggs!) in a single day at trade shows.

He now plans to focus on writing, but says, “I'll really miss being Willy Wonka."