TheChocolateLife :: LIVE – Judging Quality

There is no absolute objective measure of quality; and there can be no absolute objective standard for what can be considered good or what can be considered bad.

But it is possible to reach qualitative judgments about cocoa and chocolate – it’s important to keep in mind these judgments are a mix of objective and subjective elements.

In this live stream we’ll discuss the evaluation of cocoa and chocolate, what rating systems exist and what they are good at (and bad) at. Potential definitions for quality and how to talk about it.

And ... what all this has to do with the judging being done during awards programs. Things to keep in mind include the diversity (or lack thereof) of judging ecosystems and how transparency (or the lack thereof) plays a role on how judgments of chocolate “quality” are communicated and how different audiences perceive the results and internalize them.

Finally, “Could awards judging be doing more harm than good – or at least have unintended negative consequences?”

Homework

TCL posts on the topic of awards:

Thoughts on the 2018 International Chocolate Awards European Bean-To-Bar Awards

One of the challenges with analyzing the list of winners is that it’s not published in a form that lends itself to analysis.

The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon

2018 International Chocolate Awards - Americas Finalists Announced

I’ve downloaded the data from the awards page and after cleaning it up, did some analysis. Here are some initial top-line stats. Total number of entries Approximately 800. There is a very close correlation between the number of Winners and the number of Grand Jury Finalists – most

The Chocolate LifeTheChocolateWire

More Awards Analysis — From Grand Jury Finalist to Award-Winner

I 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 competitio…

The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon

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

The Chocolate LifeClay Gordon

Archived TCL:LIVE streams to watch that provide background:

TheChocolateLife :: LIVE – Learning to Taste (Chocolate)

Streaming LIVE on Fri Feb 11 from 12:00 EST.

The Chocolate LifeTheChocolateWire

TheChocolateLife :: LIVE – Chocolate Styles, Ancient & Modern

Episode 21: Streaming live from 12:00pm EST Friday March 4th

The Chocolate LifeTheChocolateWire

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