As India’s 1st certified chocolate taster, I bring news that may be hard to swallow for Indian craft chocolate lovers: Indian bean-to-bar chocolates have struggled to secure awards at the prestigious International Chocolate Awards (Asia Pacific 2024 edition – Click for Link to winners). While introspecting, despite significant participation, what comes out clearly is that Indian chocolatiers, over the years, have consistently fallen short in key areas and hence are unable to carry the baton forward:
- Lack of Imagination and Innovation: Indian makers often lack the creativity to produce the “chocolate magic” that captivates judges and audiences. Their innovations are typically safe and predictable, failing to push boundaries. In contrast, international award winners excel by using unique local flavors, unexpected combinations, and scientific techniques to create chocolates that surprise and delight. We currently see a lot of “me too’ variants in Indian chocolates.
- Missed Basics: Indian makers frequently overlook fundamental aspects such as understanding the cocoa bean’s capabilities, balancing flavors, and perfecting texture. Successful chocolatiers invest significant time in mastering these basics, ensuring each chocolate has the perfect balance and texture.
- Flawed Recipe Development: Indian makers often create multiple chocolate percentages with the same bean, limiting their potential for unique, award-winning creations. Top chocolatiers use different beans for various percentages, tailoring recipes to highlight each bean’s strengths.
- Underutilization of Traditional Flavors: Indian makers have not fully harnessed the rich variety of local flavors or embraced international flavors. Chocolatiers from regions like Japan skillfully blend local and international flavors, creating diverse, intriguing chocolates that stand out in competitions.
- Excessive focus on the Indian Cocoa Beans: Indian makers focus heavily on beans with limitations in bitterness, astringency, and acidity, restricting their creative potential. To win global accolades, they need to diversify their beans, using a variety of origins to create chocolates with complex, diverse flavor profiles.
- Intense Competition: Indian makers face fierce competition from countries like Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand, where artisans consistently innovate and set high standards in chocolate making. These countries push the boundaries of chocolate craftsmanship.
- Cost-Centric Approach: Many Indian fine chocolate brands treat fine flavor chocolate as a typical “food cost +” business, prioritizing cost over flavor. This strategy is failing. Successful makers focus on flavor and quality, investing in high-quality ingredients and innovative techniques, even at higher costs.
- Neglect of Craftsmanship: Indian makers need to shift focus from the cocoa bean to the chocolatier’s skill and artistry, creating extraordinary chocolates even with basic ingredients. Emphasizing craftsmanship and continually improving skills and techniques is crucial for producing exceptional chocolates.
Noteworthy: Indian cocoa beans, when exported, are used by international makers to craft award-winning chocolates, proving their potential. The real challenge is to leverage this potential through enhanced craftsmanship, innovation, and the strategic use of diverse flavors. Following are the strategies required to make Indian Chocolate makers Global Award Winners!
To elevate Indian bean-to-bar chocolates to a competitive level and secure wins at international awards, Indian chocolatiers need a strategic, well-rounded approach. Drawing from a decade of global experience, we recommend the following strategies for Indian bean-to-bar makers to elevate their chocolates on the global stage:
- Strategic Recipe Development: Move away from developing multiple percentages with the same bean. Tailor recipes to the strengths of different cocoa beans.
- Diversify Flavors and Ingredients: Utilize India’s rich variety of flavors to craft unique and innovative chocolate profiles purely based on merit of the application.
- Enhance Craftsmanship: Invest in training artisans to recognise the factors that lead to success and create extraordinary chocolates, even with the limitations of Indian cocoa beans.
- Think Beyond Indian Cocoa: After introducing products with indian cacao purely on merit, Introduce cocoa beans from various origins to diversify flavor profiles and compete internationally.
- Innovate with Purpose: Align creativity with the taste preferences and standards of international judges while keeping in mind the local tastes and market/consumer requirements, ensuring innovations are both unique and appealing yet not a forcefit or made just for the awards.
- Benchmark Against Global Standards: Study and adopt relevant innovations from regions like Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand to enhance the quality and creativity of Indian chocolates, again purely based on merit rather than copy!
- Follow food/flavour/ingredient trends: It is important to derive inspiration from international trends from the food/sweets industry and incorporate again purely based on merit rather than copy!
- Focus on Fundamentals: Strengthen the basics—flavor balance, texture, and presentation—to meet and surpass international standards. Analyse each ingredient carefully. “Rubbish in is rubbish out!”.
By following this detailed plan, Indian bean-to-bar makers can systematically enhance their craft, innovate effectively, and position themselves to win prestigious international chocolate awards.
About Cocoatrait & L Nitin Chordia:
L Nitin Chordia is India’s 1st certified chocolate taster (2014) and operates Cocoashala, India’s only Bean to Bar Chocolate incubation and training unit. Cocoashala is an innovative incubation unit dedicated to nurturing and developing bean-to-bar chocolate brands. With a focus on quality, sustainability, and education, Cocoashala aims to empower chocolate makers by providing comprehensive training, resources, and support. Its objectives include fostering creativity in chocolate making, promoting ethical sourcing of cocoa beans, and elevating the standards of artisanal chocolate production. Through its programs, Cocoashala seeks to create a thriving community of skilled chocolate makes who are committed to excellence and sustainability in the chocolate industry. With its 1st of its kind program CocoaAscend, Cocoashala intents to establish India firmly in the global Bean to Bar chocolate space. Cocoashala also is the Indian partner of IICCT, UK and hosts the popular chocolate tasting certification courses for global audiences in India.
Press Contact: L Nitin Chordia; Contact: +919600064846; nitin@cocoatrait.com