Judging Innovation in Cocoa | #PodSaveChocolate Ep 142

By Clay Gordon | 4 months ago | | 8 min read

Original background image: AbsolutVision / Unsplash

Episode 142 of #PodSaveChocolate features an exploration of judging innovation in cocoa, from the perspective of a judge (me) of the 2025 Ecuadorian Cacao Innovation Award, with a BONUS tasting! [Updated]

When and Where to Watch

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The stream airs LIVE at 11:00 PDT/MST (12:00 MDT, 1:00 CDT, 2:00 EDT), on Friday, August 15th, 2025.

Links below to watch LIVE and to view the archived episode.

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Episode 142 Overview

As I point out in the post linked to below, I had already been thinking about innovation in cacao and chocolate for two decades when that post was originally published (back in 2019).

I have been supported in this exploration by the hundreds of makers whose work I have tasted, but more recently and more directly through the Craft Chocolat Challenge and one of its sponsors, Cocoa Supply, through the addition of an Innovation Award in both the 2024 and 2025 competitions.

So, when I was approached by Leila Carvajal, the founder of Cocoa Supply, to be a judge in the Ecuadorian Cacao Innovation Award program, I jumped at the chance.

Judging Innovation: Why?

Answering this question is easy, even more so considering the increase in the cost of cocoa (and at least here in the US, import tariffs that drive up costs even more).

The specialty/craft/bean-to-bar market has conventionally focused on high cocoa content single-origin bars without inclusions or flavorings, making them comparatively very expensive, even without added cocoa butter.

Different formats and presentations (e.g., dipped, panned, and enrobed items) expand the potential customer base while providing opportunities for producing lower-COGS items at greater profit margins.

Traditional awards programs (e.g., International Chocolate Awards, Academy of Chocolate Awards, Good Food Awards) do not take innovation into account. (TL;DR; It’s not easy to.) Often, innovative products break norms, and diverse judging panels, unless specifically asked to consider innovation in judging, will have one or more members who are not impressed, thereby resulting in ratings that result in them not being recognized.

I saw this back in the early 2000s when I was working on the World Pastry Team Championships. Often, the teams from Asia (Japan, S Korea) were technically excellent but faced challenges taking ingredients and flavors that were culturally important and making them accessible to Western (mostly European-trained) chefs.

By explicitly adding innovation as a variable, entrants who take risks can be awarded for taking those risks.

Judging Innovation: What

This is not so easy to answer:

What does it mean to innovate, to be (truly) innovative, and to qualify as an innovation?

When I was working with Dustin and Leila on the judging criteria for the Innovation Award in the Craft Chocolat Challenge, this was a question we tackled head-on.

I had a specific instance of this as a judge in the Confections category of the 2015 Good Food Awards. During the afternoon judging round, the judges at my table (I was the head judge for the table) were considering between two different entries – one was still-yet-another salted butter caramel (as I recall) and chocolate-covered honeycomb. Not honeycomb candy (caramel with baking soda), but actual from-the-beehive honeycomb covered in chocolate.

I argued that we’d already judged a half-dozen salted butter caramels, so passing something through that was new and different.

In the morning round, I had a similar discussion with my table about a saffron-flavored nougat and why I wanted to pass it through over a still-yet-another salted butter caramel because it was different. I was voted down because other judges were not fans of saffron.

We never got to decide based on the innovation criterion, as one of the judges at the table started to argue that honey was not sustainable, and so the entrant should be rejected on that basis even though the pre-judging process determined that the entry met all the criteria for being “good” and it was not up to us to question that decision.

I lost the argument at the judging table but lodged a formal complaint with the organizers and that was the last time I was invited to be a judge in the Good Food Awards.

Tasting

Judging Innovation: How

In the end, rather than limit judges in the Craft Chocolat Challenge to a specific rubric – consider the following factors and assign a point value to each factor – as an extension of the approach to organoleptic evaluation, we decided to trust the experience of the judges. Each judge was asked to nominate three picks, unranked and unscored, and explain why (what it was about the entry), they thought was innovative. The picks could be independent of the scores given for consideration in the other categories. Awards were presented on a consensus of the nominations.

But that’s not the approach taken with the Ecuadorian Cacao Innovation Award. There is a formal rubric of judging categories and scores.

In this episode, I am not going to discuss how I scored any of the entries; I am going to discuss how the rubric – about whose development I had no input – as presented, helps and hinders the judging process.

Judging Rubric
Innovation	Quality	Market Potential	Sustainability
Creativity	Sensory	Consumer	Social
Novelty	Craftmanship	Logistics	Environment
	Packaging	Readiness

Some of the Judging Prompts
◉ Is there a creative usage of cocoa?
◉ Is it a new product or presentation?
◉ Does it have a good flavor, odor, texture?
◉ Is it appropriate for the European consumer

◉ ⋯ These four elements account for 70% of the final score.

I will also share the rubric I developed for the 2015 Good Food Awards judging, and how and why I think it is a better approach, and also discuss a modern alternative that might just be a whole lot better.

More Innovation Discussions on TheChocolateLife

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

#Innovate #Innovative #Innovation
#chocolate #chocolat #specialtychocolate #craftchocolate #beantobarchocolate
#cocoa #cacao #cacau
#PodSaveChoc #PSC
#LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife

Future Episodes

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None scheduled at the time this was published.

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