Guest Grand Juror – Food Writer (United Kingdom)

Cat Black is a food writer with a particular interest in the sweeter things in life.  Having worked as a private caterer and baking tutor, she has written for a variety of publications, including The Spectator’s Scoff. She has had a regular baking column in Cakes & Sugarcraft Magazine since 2010, under the name Cookie Bellair. Cat has an all-consuming passion for all that is finest in the world of chocolate and is writer of the website www.chocolatecouverture.com She also writes about chocolate in Paris for girlsguidetoparis.com

Permanent member – Seventy% (United Kingdom)

Judging Director

Martin Christy is Founder and Editor of fine chocolate review website Seventy%. Martin is a leading voice in the fine chocolate industry, passionate about the promotion and preservation of fine chocolate and fine cacao and supporting those who produce them.

Having grown up eating traditional British ‘candy’ type confectionery products, Martin discovered real chocolate in the early 1990s, in line with his interest in finer, healthier food and its sources. A growing obsession with the origin and variety of fine chocolate led him to found Seventy% to raise awareness of the quality and sourcing of the chocolate we eat, and to help create a movement to rediscover chocolate as a complex, ancient, beneficial and spiritual food. Seventy% now features over 600 reviews of chocolate bars from around the world and hosts an international panel of reviewers.

Since founding Seventy% in 2001, Martin has travelled extensively, visiting cacao plantations and meeting with the world’s top cacao and chocolate producers. Martin also runs Seventy%’s ‘Slow Chocolate’ sensory taste workshops and tasting events and is a consultant to the fine chocolate and cacao growing industries worldwide.

Martin is Judging Director of the International Chocolate Awards, which he founded in the UK with Kate Johns of Chocolate Week. He is also Acting Chairman of the new fine cacao and chocolate industry association, Direct Cacao and is a member of the Heirloom Cacao Preservation Initiative Tasting Panel and is a panel member of the Cocoa of Excellence competition.

Martin is also a freelance writer for UK magazines and web publications, and has contributed to several books about fine chocolate.

Permanent member – Manhattan Chocolate Society (United States)

George Gensler is a copyrights specialist during the week and a runner on the weekends. She lives in New York City now, but has lived in five countries on three continents. She spent her early years traveling the world with her siblings and parents, who also instilled in her a love of – and appreciation for – travel and chocolate. She continues to take every opportunity for travel that comes her way, from visiting friends and family to destination races and chocolate hunts. She has eaten chocolate on all seven continents and is working her way around them again.

George and a small group of like-minded friends formed the Manhattan Chocolate Society in 2007. The Manhattan Chocolate Society holds focused tastings, mostly of bean-to-bar chocolates, and has worked with several chocolate makers to refine their product.

Guest Grand Juror – Chocolatier and Pastry Chef – Owner of The Cocoa Lab, Lecturer at The National Bakery School & Home Chocolate Factory (United Kingdom)

Permanent member – Chocolate/Tea Taster, Wine Sommelier (Italy)

Monica Meschini was a born a curious gourmet. This led her to study a thesis on Indian cuisine in 1987 and become a member of the ‘Association Cordon Bleu’ and train as sommelier. In 1995 she was a founding member of the Chocolate Society. This inspired the birth of the world’s first chocolate-themed venue called “Hemingway” in Florence 1996. In 1999 she became President of Italian Tea Club, and in 2000, The TeaTeam, organising courses with experts Gilles Brochard and Jane Pettigrew. She wrote articles for Italian magazines on French and English tea, chocolate and confectionery.

Collaborating for 20 years with Eurochocolate at the Chocolat Salon and the Chocolate Show in Paris, Copenhagen, London and Tokyo. Her tastings have been attended by over 150,000 people. She collaborated in the guide of the Sweets of the Italian Touring Club, on the jury of Eurochocolate Award of Perugia and President of the jury at Eurochocolate Modica Award.

In 2012 she began as Co-Founder and Partner of the Italian / Mediterranean International Chocolate Awards and Co-Founder of International Institute of Chocolate Tasting. And in 2015 Co-Founder of The Tea Tasting Institute with Gilles Brochard.

Today she continues to collaborate with major international hotel chains for quality control and organising events and training and is tutor chef for The European Bachelor Course at Cordon Bleu School.

Permanent member – Consultant, Reviewer (United Kingdom)

Scoring Systems Development Advisor

Alex Rast has always passionately loved chocolate, but his serious interest began in 1990. Frustrated with the quality then available at retail, he conducted a series of experiments to make chocolate, systematically working out formulae and techniques. Eventual success convinced him that, while excellent, the finished chocolate simply did not justify the effort required on a non-commercial scale, and refocussed his efforts on exploring and tasting artisanally produced plain and milk chocolate. Some early consultations for various chocolate companies broadened his contacts, and, in 2003, he started collaborating with Seventy% in reviewing chocolate. His collaboration with Seventy% continues to this day, and he also consults on an occasional basis for chocolate manufacturers.

His full-time occupation involves architecture and design of neural hardware systems at the University of Manchester. He is a research associate in Prof. Steve Furber’s SpiNNaker group doing advanced research into neural network chips. Recently, using this work as a background, he has begun to explore neural models for chocolate taste perception, a project he is doing in partnership with Seventy%. The goal is to generate a systematic, human-sensory-based system for mapping and describing chocolate flavour from bean to bar.

Permanent member – Chocolats-de-luxe.de GmbH (Germany)

Michaela Schupp is based in Hannover, Germany. After studying hotel management in Heidelberg, she has pursued a successful career as a Supply Chain Director, working for amongst others PepsiCo Restaurants International, Accor Hotellerie Deutschland, Compass Group Deutschland and HGK eG Hannover.

In 2005 Michaela decided to turn her passion into a business by founding www.chocolats-de-luxe.de, an online fine chocolate boutique that stocks products from over 50 chocolate makers from 17 countries. In 2012, the business picked up a coveted award from Der Feinschmecker magazine.

In May 2014 Michaela organized the International Chocolate Awards for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, expanding the Awards to more countries. Her chocolate indulgence brought her to initiate the first chocolate-gourmet-festival in Hannover in September 2014.

Guest Grand Juror – Restaurant Tropeano Di-Vino (Germany)

Biagio Tropeano – Sommelier (Italy)

After completing his sommelier training in Milan in 1976, Biagio went on to become Germany’s first officially recognized sommelier. In 1985 the German magazine Feinschmecker described him as the most highly regarded sommelier and an undisputed expert in Italian wines.

In 1996, Biagio opened Ristorante Tropeano, which now ranks as one of Germany’s top five Italian restaurants. This was followed in 2003 by the opening of his equally acclaimed wine bar, the Tropeano Di-Vino. In 2006, Biagio was responsible for opening the Wine Academy in Hannover. He makes frequent television appearances on NDR and SAT1 and is a regular contributor to publications such as HAZ, Feinschmecker, Wein-Gourmet and Stern.