Largest chocolate bunny - world record
set by Harry Johnson for Duracell
SANDTON CITY, South Africa -- The sculptured Easter
bunny made by artist Harry Johnson, 51, an exact replica
of the well-known and loved Duracell® Bunny officially came
in at 3.82 metres tall (12 feet, 5 inches) and weighed more
than 3 tons (2721 kilos) - setting the new world record for
the Largest
chocolate bunny. Photo: The world's
Largest chocolate bunny took over one month of planning
to create, and was sculptured out of chocolate blocks in a
matter of three days by the fastest sculptor in the world
- South Africa’s own Harry Johnson.
(enlarge
photo)
The previous Guinness world record for the
Largest
chocolate bunny was held by Brazil with 2.8 tonnes.
Well-known around the world for being able
to sculpt portraits of people within a matter of three hours
compared to the average time of one to two months, Johnson
was excited by the challenge of working with chocolate.
“This was the first time I have ever worked with
chocolate,” he remarked. “I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Having worked with so many different materials, I was truly
amazed as to what you can actually do with chocolate. In-fact
the creation of the Duracell®
chocolate bunny has inspired me to create an exciting
new range of chocolate sculptures of famous people and icons.”
“In order to carve a sculpture entirely
out of three tons of chocolate and to ensure that the sculpture
was secure and stable from both a strength and technical perspective
due to its height, I created a steel structure to place inside
the chocolate bunny using a powder coat, which we blasted
clean in order to meet health regulations,” Johnson stated.
"To actually do it here was a process of
literally phyisically making bricks up of melted chocolate,
6.5 kilogramme bricks, heating them up, putting them togather
so we can make it look like a robot bunny, first stages, because
of the whole bricking system, plastering and then chipping
started or the sculpting started," he said.
"At the moment I don't like chocolate
at all, after that sweetness and working so intimately with
chocolate for three days and that smell, no. I've got to say
have a chocolate lying on my desk and I don't want to touch
it. As nice as chocolate is, no way," said co-creator Mark
Fruhauf.
The world's
Largest chocolate bunny was sculptured and stored
within a Perspex ‘housing’ structure which had a cooling system
to keep the temperature of the bunny at 18°Celcius.
“By creating and storing the bunny in this structure
we ensured that the three tons of chocolate were kept from
melting for a long period of time, but it also met with the
stringent health regulations which we have adhered to throughout
the entire process of developing the bunny,” commented Jason
Frichol, Fore Good’s Group Brand Strategist, brand custodians
of Duracell® South Africa
Even organiser Jason Frichol said: "So,
we wanted to do the first in South Africa. We have talented
people here. "The sculptor who did this, the logistics, it
took such a big team and we almost thought it was impossible,
and you know when South Africans put their heads together
with the passion and determination on the wave of the World
Cup 2010, it does me proud and does my heart warm."