TheChocolateLifeLIVE | Improving Cocoa Quality – How & Why?

By TheChocolateWire | 10 months ago | 5 min read

Original photo Towfiqu barbhuiya / Unsplash

Episode 118 of #TheChocolateLifeLIVE is LIVE from 10:00 AM PDT / 1:00 PM EDT on Tue, June 27th.

Watch on my LinkedIn profile
Watch on TheChocolateLife page on Facebook (live event)

Summary

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This episode discusses the importance of improving cocoa quality and the challenges associated with it. Quality in cocoa beans can be subjective, and farmers are often incentivized to ship more waste along with the beans due to the way they are paid. The host highlights the need for a shared definition of quality and the importance of consistent distribution and fermentation for industrial chocolate makers. However, for craft chocolate makers, inconsistency can be seen as an opportunity to explore different flavors. The video emphasizes the need for education and informing consumers about cocoa flavors to cultivate market demand for high-quality chocolate. It also addresses the subjective nature of chocolate quality and the role of skill and expertise in chocolate making. Furthermore, the video suggests that educating children about quality chocolate can help develop an appreciation for higher-quality products.

Overview

The topic of what quality is has been explored in several episodes of TheChocolateLifeLIVE (see Resources section for links to two of them).

The topic to be explored in this episode is “Improving Cocoa Quality – How and Why?”

This is the link to the original post on LinkedIn where I asked the question. Many of the responses to my question are are here.

On the surface, this might sound like a stupid question: “Why not improve the quality of cocoa?”

One answer could be, “Why invest in the training, infrastructure, and other elements required if the price paid to the farmer for the improvements does not reflect a positive return on the investment?”

As with the previous episode Just One Change (in which I asked the question, “If there was *one* change you could make to the way things are today in the worlds of cocoa and/or chocolate, what would that one change be, and why?”), for this episode I am asking members and visitors to think about:

What quality even means?
What does improving quality means?
How quality can (should?) be improved?; and
Why should we even be concerned about improving cocoa quality?

Please answer in the comments. If you would like to record your answer as a video (under one minute, please) email it to Member Support. I will share all the comments and play any videos during the live stream and credit you.

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Please post comments and send submissions by Monday, June 26th. On Friday the 30th there will be a follow-up episode discussing barriers to improving quality.

Responses

As of Monday, June 16th at 10:30 MST/PDT there were four response threads.

By email from a ChocolateLife member (edited for grammar and clarity):

At a minimum, Quality is meeting some minimum standards. My pet peeve are producers not minimizing the non-usable material that is shipped in a bag: stems, stones, and other non-cacao materials, flats, broken beans, etc. Better sorting would be a blessing. I do monitor the ratio of waste in a bag and [name not shamelessly used] US cacao bean wholesaler refunded a percentage of the cost when the waste was excessive. Still, the cost of shipping is outrageous. We are attracted to better-sorted beans all things considered.

Why should we even be concerned about improving cocoa quality? Lots of organizations get caught up in defining it for their industry. But we know it when we see it. We will get to a $100 bar when buyers appreciate that the proceeds are reasonably distributed along the value chain, and all contributors are reasonably paid and economically incentivized to produce the best (ethically sourced, chemical-free best-they-can-make) products.

Resources

Why are rising prices a bad thing? (Hint: It can raise the price of chocolate (without putting more money into farmers’ pockets).

Hashtags

#quality
#chocolate #craftchocolate #cacao #cocoa #cacau
#TheChocolateLife #LaVidaCocoa