The Academy of Chocolate Conference

Saturday 9th October

Before the industry starts the Chocolate Week celebrations we held a conference at the RAC in Central London. The Academy of Chocolate’s first conference was a great success with a mixture of people who work in the chocolate World and pastry chefs. Craig Sams, founder of Green & Blacks kicked off the proceedings with a fascinating talk on the foundation and basis of cacao. Tony Lass, an expert in agronomy of cacao was next, talking about cacao farmers and how 95% of cacao is produced by smallholders on family farms. Tony also covered cacao as a commodity, currently a very topical subject.

Richard Perks from Mintel covered the worth of the industry, in the UK and around Europe, the premium end of the market is the fastest growing sector, 87% or men and 91% of women like chocolate and that now 51% of people prefer dark chocolate opposed to a few years ago when it was 35%. Sophi Tranchell from Divine talked about fairtrade and the wonderful work that Divine have been doing to support the farmers that own 45% of the company and Lynn Cunningham from Hotel Chocolat talked about their work in St Lucia on Rabot Estate.

The afternoon’s talks moved onto the final product with chocolate tastings and talks on running a chocolate business. Highlights included Tastemakers - a seminar on creating flavour combinations with Chantal Coady from Rococo, Keith Hurdman from Thorntons and Paul a Young all talking about their experiences, sharing their knowledge and sampling some of their creations. Dr Baukje de Roos from the University of Aberdeen talked about the health benefits of chocolate and how her study over the past year has proved that chocolate is indeed good for us, particularly for our hearts with an almost immediate effect within 3 hours. William Curley demonstrated creating chocolates and desserts. Duffy Sheardown hosted a wonderful tasting demonstrating how different conching times significantly affects the taste of chocolate. The day finished with Angus Thirlwell of Hotel Chocolat and Anne Weyns of Artisan du Chocolat talking on commercial without compromise and running a successful chocolate company whilst still producing a quality product.

One of the points that speakers kept touching on throughout the day was sustainability, that many young people in the growing countries aren’t choosing to be farmers due to the low price of cacao and that trees aren’t being re-planted. On a more positive note, it’s the premium end of the market that is growing and it’s this part of the industry that is the most sustainable and supportive of the farmers.