The Nature of Innovation | #PodSaveChocolate Ep 112
Episode 112 of #PodSaveChocolate features an exploration of what makes a chocolate bar “innovative” – one of the judging categories in the 2025 Craft Chocolat Challenge.
As we head into what will most likely be a difficult summer for craft chocolate, I am making a special offer to existing and new members on an annual Team TCL Guru Membership in April and save nearly $1000 on coaching/consulting fees.
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When and Where to Watch
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Clay Gordon
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Episode 112 Overview
In the 2024 (third) Edition of The Craft Chocolat Challenge (“CCC”), a new award category was added – Innovation – to the original four categories of Plain and Flavored Dark, Plain and Flavored Milk, Plain and Flavored White, and Inclusions (Dark, Milk, or White).
In speaking with Dustin (the founder/organizer of the CCC) after the second edition, I suggested some entries deserved to be judged based on what the maker was doing which was interesting – but sometimes the results were not ... received by the judges as being “good enough” to win an award in one of the main categories.
This is a shame – because promoting taking chances, doing interesting things ... innovating ... is something that should be encouraged. If makers are going to play it safe and only enter bars that don’t challenge the judges to evaluate outside the box, a golden opportunity is missed.
After some back and forth, Dustin agreed with me, and we both agreed we’d add the category if we could find a sponsor for it. Fortunately, Leila Carvajal of Cocoa Supply stepped forward for last year’s challenge and again for this year’s challenge.
The CCC Innovation awards are sponsored by Cocoa Supply.
But What Is Innovation?
That’s the topic to be covered in this episode.
It’s never bad to start by defining terms.
All of the judges were tasked to not only rate and review each entry we were also tasked with nominating three (of 57) entries to be considered for the innovation award. The innovation nominations were unranked (there is no gold, silver, or bronze in this category – all awards are co-equal). There was also no guidance about what innovation meant, each of us judges was free to interpret what being “innovative” meant to us.
For each nomination, we were asked to explain why we thought the entry deserved our nod.
The list of official entries – until the winners are announced.
After reviewing all the bars there were about five bars I was considering that I had to winnow down to three. While I am not going to reveal (at least not intentionally specifically) what my three nominations were, I am going to go over my thought process as well as the mechanics of how I kept track.
In Advance of the Episode ...
Take a look at the list of entries and think about what qualifies – for you – as innovative and share your three nominations in the comments and/or live during the episode.
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.
Episode Hashtags and Socials
#CraftChocolatChallenge
IG: @craft_chocolat_challenge @cocoasupply
#cocoa #cacao #cacau
#chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate
#PodSaveChoc #PSC
#LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife
Future Episodes
Starts one hour earlier – 10:00 am PDT/MST.
2025 – Season 4 – Craft Chocolat Challenge Awards Episode
Interview and Tasting – Chocolate Tree, Scotland (Ali Gower)
#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives
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Clay Gordon
Clay Gordon
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