Americas Bean-to-Bar and Craft Chocolatier Competition, 2023

Location: New York, United States
Closing date: 12 May 2023
Judging dates: 24 May 2023 – 20 Jun 2023

THIS COMPETITION WAS ALREADY JUDGED.

The Americas Bean-to-Bar and Craft Chocolatier Competition celebrates the work of craft chocolate makers creating chocolate bars from traceable fine cacao, and craft chocolatiers using chocolate with an identifiable and traceable cacao source. By helping to promote traceable chocolate, we aim to support the work of cacao farmers producing fine cacao and create a more sustainable market for high-end specialty cacao.

Online judging

The Americas competition will once again be judged online with judges working at home in their own locations. This allows us to include the widest range of experienced judges from countries in the region.

Winners of the competition will pass through to the World Final, which will be held October– November 2023.

If your samples cannot arrive by 12 May, please get in touch.

Origin Traceability

We are committed to supporting economically, socially and environmentally sustainable cacao farming where farmers are paid a reasonable price that reflects the work that goes into growing fine cacao. We also believe that the chocolate with the best flavor profiles comes from directly sourced fine cacao.

From 2023 onwards, we will ask every entrant for the origin of cacao used for the dark and milk chocolate in their entries, including chocolatiers. These details are given confidentially when entering. White chocolate and cocoa butter are currently excluded from these rules.

By ‘origin’ we mean a known region, area, district, or farm recognised as a source of fine cacao. We will also limit the number of sources that can be used for an origin to no more than three different cooperatives, commercial farmers, post-harvest centres, individual farmers, research stations or other single sources. Blends are acceptable if they use no more than three different named origins.

We won’t accept origins defined only as the name of the cacao growing country, except for smaller cacao countries producing less than 4000 tonnes of cacao per year.

These rules apply to all chocolate used in filled chocolate and spreads, including commercial couverture. Details of the origin must be obtained from the chocolate maker or supplier if you are not the chocolate maker.

If you do not make your own chocolate, you will also need to supply a 50g sample of the chocolate you are using for your products, in case there is a Grand Jury query about the origin.

We believe that these rules will help to promote the spirit and ideal of craft chocolate and to help the development of good chocolate and cacao.

Customs

IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ! If you are outside of the USA, please follow the correct procedures for customs to ensure that your samples arrive safely without problems. Please do NOT send your samples without correctly completed customs documents – do NOT just send you package and hope it arrives!

Please WAIT until you have paid for your registration and we have approved your entries. We will then send you a template for your samples with the correct descriptions, values and tariff codes, which you can paste into your customs proforma invoice. If you follow this correctly, then your samples will have a much better chance to arrive without a customs hold up.

When you send your package, make it clear that these are samples for evaluation only and have no commercial value and are not for resale. (But do not put the value as $0.00!) Do NOT send your samples as a commercial wholesale or retail sale. After your entries are approved, you can download our product labels and add them to your samples, these have the correct customs information. If you are sending samples in retail packaging, we suggest that you add our product label to each item, eg each bar.

Please note that we can NOT act as an importer for your samples or provide an import number or tax details.

Judging scores and flavor profiles

All entries will receive comprehensive feedback from our new judging system, including the overall product score and standardised feedback statements for all products, and visual flavor profiles for origin bars and cacao ingredients. We use our advanced interactive evaluation system for judging, which is based on the IICCT flavor profiling system. Scores are weighted to align with specialty coffee scores. Scores will be published on our website for all Grand Jury Finalists

Eligibility

Open to all entrants with their main office or headquarters in North, South and Central America, for all categories including cocoa butter and cocoa powder, but NOT including drinking chocolate. A separate World Drinking Chocolate competition will be held later in the year.

Canadian companies may only enter bean-to-bar plain/origin and flavored bar entries in the Americas competition. The Canadian Craft Chocolatier Competition for chocolatier products – flavored bars made with couverture, filled chocolates and spreads – will take place in September/October 2023. (Only one registration fee will be charged for companies entering both competitions).

The admission fee for this competition is USD $65 and the fee for each entry is USD $55. Prices will be converted into local currency by your credit card company, if required.