> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://thechocolatelife.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Data Analysis Paralysis WtAF(*)!? | #PodSaveChocolate Ep97 - URL: https://thechocolatelife.com/data-analysis-paralysis-wtaf-podsavechocolate-ep97/ - Published: 2025-02-02T22:00:29.000Z - Updated: 2025-02-02T22:01:34.000Z - Description: What can we learn by analyzing the 2024 Academy of Chocolate Awards winners and other lists? Episode 97 of #PodSaveChocolate does just that, concluding: What the *Actual* F(^)!? - Author: Clay Gordon - Tags: PodSaveChocolate, Live Stream **When and Where to Watch** 🗓️ The stream airs at LIVE 11:00 ****MST** (10:00 PST, 12:00 CST, 13:00 EST), on Tuesday, February 4th, 2025. Links below to watch live – or to view the archived episode. Click on this (shareable) link to watch on YouTube. Please subscribe (free!) to the [@PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@podsavechocolate/featured?ref=thechocolatelife.com), like this video, comment, and ****share** this episode to help grow the #PSC community. [Clay Gordon on LinkedIn: #podsavechocolate #lavidacocoa #thechocolatelife #cacao #cocoa #cacau…Episode 97 Overview The Academy of Chocolate just announced the awardees of the 2024 competition. I immediately visited the page on the website (link below)…![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/icon/al2o9zrvru7aqj8e1x2rzsrca-4)LinkedInClay Gordon![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/thumbnail/c45fy346jw096z9pbphyyhdz7-4)](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/claygordon%5Fpodsavechocolate-lavidacocoa-thechocolatelife-activity-7291933663431168000-Py%5Fi?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop) This ****LINKEDIN** link is shareable, too. [Data Analysis Paralysis WtAF(\*)!? | #PodSaveChocolate Ep97Other event by TheChocolateLife on Tuesday, February 4 2025![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/icon/aGT3gskzWBf-4.ico)#PodSaveChocolate Ep97![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/thumbnail/media-4)](https://fb.me/e/6bLMhAz6t?ref=thechocolatelife.com) This ****FACEBOOK** link is also shareable. --- ## **Episode 97 Overview** The Academy of Chocolate just announced the awardees of the 2024 competition. I immediately visited the page on the website (link below) with the list – hoping against hope the organizers would finally publish the list in a format that made it easy for members of the public – and data-savvy journalists like me – to use the list as presented. [2024 - Academy of Chocolate![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/icon/aoc-logo-left.png)Academy of Chocolate![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/thumbnail/Sliver-icon.png)](https://academyofchocolate.org.uk/awards/2024/?ref=thechocolatelife.com) Click to visit the list of awardees. Sadly, the answer is it’s (still) a real mess. > In my opinion **it’s an affront** to the companies who entered the competition and it flips the bird at people who want to explore the products that won awards. 🔑 For some still unknown reason, none of the names of the winners links to their website. At £60 per entry, the least the organizers can do is take the time to link to a website. In 2025, ***WtAF**? Further oversights by AoC and issues I have with the list include: - It’s not sortable or filterable – at over 500 entries this makes it unwieldy to navigate. - Capitalization is inconsistent. - Spelling is inconsistent. - Alphabetizaion is inconsistent. - There is no indication of the country of the entrant. - There is no consistent mention of the cocoa origin (producing country). - There is no consistent ordering of key data like cocoa percentage. - There is a huge amount of redundancy. I scraped the contents of the page and used a programmer’s text editor, a word processor, and a spreadsheet to regularize and normalize the data, added features that assist in sorting the results (and return them to their original ordering when necessary), and more. > I was *not* able to start any actual analysis until all the above work was completed. In this episode, I am going to share the journey I took taking the data as presented on the page to a condition where I could start some analysis and present that analysis. I will also demonstrate what else needs to be done to make the data ***actually*** usable (not including finding all the URLs). When I am done with that rant, I will share some insights from the most recent Candy Industry Top 100 Global “Candy” companies – a task that was much harder in many respects than the AoC awards list even though it’s only twenty-percent as long. [2024 Global Top 100 Candy Companies | Candy Industry | Snack Food & Wholesale BakerySnack Food & Wholesale Bakery is your best source of production, technology and product news, ideas and solutions for a changing industry.![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/icon/apple-touch-icon-152-1.png)Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/thumbnail/GlobalTop100_2022.png)](https://www.snackandbakery.com/candy-industry/2024/global-top-100-candy-companies?ref=thechocolatelife.com) --- ### **Why It’s Important To Do Better** The organizers of awards are sitting on a treasure trove of information about the specialty chocolate industry. - They publish a subset of the information the gather. - They regularly change what and how they publish the information from year-to-year. - They make it difficult to use the information they *do* publish by deliberately obfuscating the data in badly-written and even *obfuscated* HTML. ⁉️ The question is, “Why?” After going through all the work to collect the data, **why not make it* ***usable** *?* --- ### **Want to Help?** Since there is no copyright on informative lists, I am happy to make my 2024 awards spreadsheet available to anyone who wants to use it as the basis for more analysis. Let me know in the comments and I will make it available to download from this page. If you are a programmer and want to help automate the process of scraping, normalizing, and regularizing the data (to the extent possible) from awards programs because you think it’s a valuable project to embark on, you have the skills, and you have the time – [contact me by email](mailto:tcl%5Finfo@thechocolatelife.com). I think this is a perfect project for a student looking for a thesis idea and I am happy to discuss where I think the work can lead. --- ### **Related Stories** I am not singling out the Academy of Chocolate here – I have similar experiences with the International Chocolate Awards. [Thoughts on the 2018 International Chocolate Awards European Bean-To-Bar AwardsOne of the challenges with analyzing the list of winners is that it’s not published in a form that lends itself to analysis.![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/icon/JR_Pods60x60FavIconCutoutButtons-8.png)The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/thumbnail/Dg0AdAYTJkWrHLgoleCiGw.jpg)](https://thechocolatelife.com/thoughts-on-the-2018-international-chocolate-awards-european-bean-to-bar-awards/) [More Awards Analysis — From Grand Jury Finalist to Award-WinnerI have posted a number of stories already analyzing various 2018 International Chocolate Awards (ICA) competitions. > The goal of this analysis to provide a better understanding of which companies and which origins are winning awards, and to discover commonalities and differences between competitions (e.g., does the regionality of a![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/icon/JR_Pods60x60FavIconCutoutButtons-9.png)The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/thumbnail/QetvQxa-VEWSINda82tlhA.jpg)](https://thechocolatelife.com/more-awards-analysis-from-grand-jury-finalist-to-award-winner/) [Can Chocolate Awards Programs Benefit From a Customer Service Mindset?The issues I have can be summarized as: \* There is a disconnect between what wins awards, and what people buy (at least when it comes to small batch craft chocolate); and \* There is a disconnect between what the awards are supposed to recognize and how the awards are used by![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/icon/JR_Pods60x60FavIconCutoutButtons-11.png)The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/thumbnail/l6YrJy6Iek2TXkgrH0HDpA.jpg)](https://thechocolatelife.com/can-chocolate-awards-programs-benefit-from-a-customer-service-mindset/) [UPDATED: TheChocolateLifeLIVE – Awards Analysis Nerdgasm & AMAEpisode 75 of #TheChocolateLifeLIVE streams on Tuesday, December 20th from 12:00\~13:00 EST.![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/icon/JR_Pods60x60FavIconCutoutButtons-10.png)The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/thumbnail/lucas-kapla-94qPvR72FWk-unsplash-Featured1920x1080.jpg)](https://thechocolatelife.com/thechocolatelifelive-awards-analysis-nerdgasm-ama/) [2021 Good Food Awards WinnersThe winners were announced during a YouTube live stream on Friday, January 22nd.![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/icon/JR_Pods60x60FavIconCutoutButtons-12.png)The Chocolate LifeTheChocolateWire![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/thumbnail/GFA2021-LivestreamWelcome-1.jpg)](https://thechocolatelife.com/2021-good-food-awards-winners/) [UPDATED: 2024 Craft Chocolat Challenge Awards Show | #PodSaveChocolateEpisode 33 of #PodSaveChocolate is dedicated to presenting the winners of the 2024 Craft Chocolat Challenge.![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/icon/JR_Pods60x60FavIconCutoutButtons-13.png)The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/thumbnail/Ep-033--CCC-Awards---V2Featured1920x1080-1.jpg)](https://thechocolatelife.com/2024-craft-chocolat-challenge-awards-show-podsavechocolate/) --- ### **Questions?** If you have questions or want to comment, you can do so during the episode or, if you are a ChocolateLife member, you can add them in the Comments below at ***any*** time. --- ### **More Episode Hashtags** #cocoa #cacao #cacau #chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate #PodSaveChoc #PSC #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife --- ### **Future Episodes** 📆 ****Friday, Feb 7th** January News & AMA --- ### **#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives** **To read an archived post** and find the links to watch archived episodes, click on one of the bookmark cards, below. [Pod Save Chocolate Calendar and ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/size/w256h256/2020/12/JR_Pods60x60FavIconCutoutButtons.png)The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/2023/11/TagImageBanner-PodSaveChocTagFinal_1920x1080-5.jpg)](https://thechocolatelife.com/pod-save-chocolate-calendar-and-archive/) [#TheChocolateLifeLIVE ArchiveNews, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/size/w256h256/2020/12/JR_Pods60x60FavIconCutoutButtons.png)The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/2023/03/solen-feyissa-WG7v_wYZW4Q-unsplash-CalendarFeatured1920x1080.jpg)](https://thechocolatelife.com/thechocolatelife-live-calendar/) [PodSaveChocolateHosted by Clay Gordon, the creator and moderator of TheChocolateLife.com, #PodSaveChocolate covers a wide variety of topics in the worlds of cocoa and chocolate. The video versions of this podcast are hosted and archived on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Click on the PodSaveChocolate link in the top nav on TheChocolateLife for the links to the post accompanying each episode.![](https://pnc.st/static/img/256x256.png)Pinecast![](https://social.pinecast.net/preview_card/podcasts/covers/d3730dca-0711-4720-9ef3-3b18918c1f0d/TagImageBanner-PodSaveChocTagFinal_1920x1080.jpg?title=PodSaveChocolate)](https://pnc.st/s/podsavechocolate?ref=thechocolatelife.com) Audio-only podcasts --- ## Not a Member? Live The Chocolate Life – Live La Vida Cocoa! Sign up for Free to comment and receive members-only content. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. 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