Rethinking Craft Chocolate| #PodSaveChocolate Ep61

When and Where to Watch

🗓️
The LIVE episode starts at 10:00 AM PDT/MST (11:00 MDT, 12:00 CDT, 13:00 EDT), on Friday, July 26th, 2024.
‼️
Join the conversation LIVE!

Watch on YouTube, LinkedIn, or Facebook to comment and ask questions live during the episode.
Rethinking Craft Chocolate| #PodSaveChocolate Ep61
Episode 61 OverviewEpisode 61 of #PodSaveChocolate takes a look at the current state of “craft” chocolate in the light of current – and future – cocoa market…

Click to watch on YouTube in a new tab or window. Please subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and share to help grow the #PSC community.

Watch and comment on LinkedIn.
Watch and comment on Facebook.


Episode 61 Overview

There’s an old saying, “You have to think outside the box.” Deepak Chopra famously updated this phrase to, “You have to throw the box away,” suggesting that more is needed.

My corollary to Chopra’s update is, “To be truly innovative, you have to forget what boxes are.”

At its core, forgetting what boxes are means regularly re-examining assumptions and being open to changing what you believe because the words you use inform your beliefs, your beliefs inform your actions, and actions have consequences.

For example, many people who call themselves “bean-to-bar” chocolate makers only make bars. This makes sense in this framing. However, changing the framing to, “I make chocolate, what can be made with chocolate?” opens up the possibility of making other things, even if it’s just chocolate bark.

When call yourself a “craft” chocolate maker, what assumptions are you making? What assumptions are you bringing to your interpretation of the word craft? What are the implications of your assumptions and interpretations?

This is an existential question for many makers these days given the cost of cocoa beans today and the uncertain movement of prices in the short, medium, and long-term.

David Nilsen and I explored some of this in episodes of Bean to Barstool and PodSaveChocolate:

David Nilsen Bean to Barstool Part 2 | #PodSaveChocolate Ep57
Episode 57 of #PodSaveChocolate features a return interview with David – after I appeared as a guest on his Bean to Barstool podcast. We’ll be talking about definitions for craft, our approaches to tasting and pairing, and more.

There is a link to the episode of Bean to Barstool in this post.

This past weekend was TheChocolateLife monthly member AMA call. These calls are like Forrest Gump’s apocryphal box 0f chocolates – I never know what’s going to be discussed.

In this instance, the call was spent with a ChocolateLife member who is a chocolate maker looking to talk through ways to expand their product line to be less dependent on cocoa (and cocoa butter). Although these calls are scheduled to last 90 minutes, this one ran to three hours because I wanted to get some opinions about ideas I’d been thinking about – ideas that I started to discuss in the following PodSaveChocolate episode.

Craft Beer & Chocolate: Differences That Matter | #PodSaveChocolate Ep59
Episode 59 of #PodSaveChocolate is a review of topics discussed with David Nilsen of the Bean to Barstool podcast about the similarities and differences between pairing, judging, and more.

I’ve been thinking about that conversation a lot since Sunday and in this episode, I will share some of those thoughts, spurred on by recent reports of the 0ff-harvest in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.


💡
Ghana's Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) projected the 2023/24 cocoa harvest would be only 422,500 to 425,000 metric tons, a 22-year low. — Source: Reuters
Cocoa Cash Futures Price History - Barchart.com
The historical data and Price History for Cocoa (CCY00) with Intraday, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Quarterly data available for download.

Questions? Comments?

If you have questions or want to comment, you can do so live during the episode or after. If you are a ChocolateLife member, you can add them in the Comments below at any time.


#cocoa #cacao #cacau
#chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate
#PodSaveChocolate #PodSaveChoc
#LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife


Future Episodes

💡
Tuesday, July 30
Luciana Monteira, ARA Cacao (Brasil)

#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 Archive
News, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. #PodSaveChocolate!
#TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archive
News, views, and conversations on topics in cocoa and chocolate streamed live to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.