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 once again struggled to secure awards at the prestigious International Chocolate Awards (World Finals 2025). While introspecting, despite significant participation, what comes out clearly is that Indian craft chocolate makers, over the years, have consistently fallen short in key areas and hence are unable to carry the baton forward:

1. 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.  
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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, which have been exported for over 5 years, have been used by international makers to craft award-winning chocolates, proving their potential. The real challenge is to leverage this potential through enhanced chocolate making craftsmanship, right tools, out-of-the-box thinking, 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

Cocoashala, a leading chocolate training academy, announces “CocoaAscend” a transformative program designed to help bean-to-bar chocolate makers achieve top-tier quality. This 1^st of its kind partner program is aimed at gaining prestigious global awards and recognition, thus, transforming them into industry leaders.

Background: Indian cacao and bean-to-bar chocolate makers have faced significant criticism and a recent drought of awards at the Asia Pacific level due to fierce competition from Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, and China. This highlights the need for Indian chocolatiers to elevate their craft and ensure India shines on the global stage. The core issues are a lack of imagination, innovation, application, intent, vision, insights, and a competitive spirit—all essential for creating “chocolate magic.” It’s time for Indian makers to step up and showcase their true potential.

Spearheaded by L Nitin Chordia, India’s first certified chocolate taster and founder of Cocoashala, the CocoaAscend program offers comprehensive support, covering every aspect of chocolate production and brand development, from raw material sourcing to product marketing and distribution. “Our mission with CocoaAscend is to guide chocolate brands through a transformative journey, helping them achieve unparalleled excellence and global recognition” said L Nitin Chordia. “With our extensive experience and deep industry knowledge, we are committed to elevating the standards of chocolate making and ensuring that our participants succeed on a global stage.”

CocoaAscend Program Highlights:

• Raw Material Sourcing: Ethical, sustainable practices for premium cacao.
• Storage & Machinery: Optimize conditions and introduce advanced / optimal equipment.
• Manufacturing & Recipes: Improve process, Enhance consistency, flavor, and texture.
• Branding & Packaging: Develop compelling brand stories and sustainable packaging.
• Marketing & Distribution: Strategic market visibility and penetration.
• Awards Preparation: Guidance on preparing, entering and excelling in competitions.

Benefits of CocoaAscend:

• Enhanced product quality with superior flavor and texture.
• Increased market visibility and consumer engagement.
• Industry recognition through awards and accolades.
• Sustainable practices for long-term success and profitability.

CocoaAscend is set to revolutionize the bean-to-bar chocolate industry by providing the tools, knowledge and insights necessary for brands to achieve excellence. With Cocoashala’s expert guidance, participants will not only create award-winning chocolate but also establish themselves as leaders in the market.

About Cocoashala & L Nitin Chordia:

L Nitin Chordia, based in Chennai, is India’s 1st Certified Chocolate Taster. Nitin has been a judge at the International Chocolate Awards, London. Cocoashala has trained most top bean to bar makers in India and helped them grow in this highly profitable and exciting Bean to Bar chocolate making industry. Since 2019, Cocoashala has been working tirelessly to promote the cocoa and bean to bar chocolate industry in India by nurturing startups and providing them with the necessary resources to succeed. Over the last decade, we have offered various courses to help bean to bar makers succeed in India and globally. The link to the courses are: https://cocoatrait.com/product-category/shop/events/

We are currently seeing mayhem on the cacao stock exchanges worldwide, the prices of a commodity which we cannot easily assume anymore.

Cacao, often referred to as the “food of the gods,” is a highly sought-after commodity globally, valued for its use in producing chocolate and other confectionery products. Derived from the seeds of the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao), this tropical plant is primarily cultivated in regions near the equator, including West Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.

As a commodity, cacao holds significant economic importance, with a complex supply chain involving farmers, exporters, processors, and manufacturers. The market for cacao is influenced by various factors, including weather conditions, labor costs, ever increasing global demand for chocolate products, and government policies in producing countries.

The trade of cacao involves both raw cacao beans and processed products like cocoa powder and cocoa butter. Futures contracts for cacao are traded on commodity exchanges, allowing stakeholders to hedge against price fluctuations and manage risk in the volatile market.

Let’s take a brief detour into Coffee as a commodity has a cyclical price trend and estate owners make up for their losses to maintain an estate usually easily with every upturn in the cycle. A 10 year steep fall with several 3-4 year cycles is typical in coffee with ups and downs providing opportunities to one and all in the business. The graph below is self explanatory.https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coffee. But why are we still not talking about cacao?

Let’s now dive into cacao, a commodity or crop which makes our favourite chocolate! Most consumers do not associate this crop with their chocolate but the current news about it being valued the same as copper raises many eyebrows and garners the required attention to this commodity.

I’d like to bring to the table a few facts. In the last 50 years cacao has been a rather stable price crop with an exception of a price spike in 1977 and the increase caused due to extreme weather events that impacted the crops and hence production in West Africa. West Africa produces around two-thirds of the world’s cocoa and it is expected that any impact (small or big) is bound to imbalance the world’s demand/supply situation. The background behind the current unprecedented increase or spike in the pricing needs to be understood. Cacao prices have not seen this surge in the past ever. Cost of inputs to farmers have not changed in the last 8 months. The price difference Bulk Vs commodity cacao is narrowing and this does not augur well for either mass or speciality chocolate brands. While the earlier price differential used to be 50% (between bulk Vs speciality cacao). With the prices of bulk cacao increasing three times, that differential will now be unaffordable by both the speciality chocolate manufacturers and consumers alike.

What we expect: At Cocoashala, we expect the prices to start cooling off within the next 3-4 months and then we are looking at prices reducing over a 2 year period and stabilising at the 3500 USD/ton levels. Will the next 2 years impact the chocolate consumer? Yes! While manufacturers will find smart ways to keep the consumer happy to buy more chocolates, consumers would see their sweet treats becoming more expensive and they would basically have to pay more for lesser. Cocoa butter which costs 3 times the price usually will continue to remain the most critical input to the chocolate industry and the prices would take longer than the cacao bean to cool off.