Academy of Chocolate

Founded in 2005, the Academy of Chocolate is a not-for-profit association set up by some of Britain’s leading chocolate professionals, united in the belief that eating fine chocolate is one of life’s great pleasures. They wanted to campaign for better chocolate and promote a greater awareness of the difference between fine chocolate and the mass-produced chocolate confectionery which most of us eat. The founding members of the Academy of Chocolate include Sara Jayne Stanes OBE (CEO, Royal Academy of Culinary Arts and author of Chocolate the Definitive Guide and Chocolate), Chantal Coady (Rococo), Martin Christy (Seventypercent.com), Chloe Doutre-Roussel (Chocolate Specialist – formerly Fortnum & Mason) and Sarah Jane Evans MW (journalist and wine writer) with renowned chef Michel Roux OBE as Patron. Aims: • To encourage chocolate lovers to ‘look beyond the label’ to differentiate between chocolate confectionery and ‘real’ chocolate. • To improve the standard and knowledge of chocolate in the UK by promoting an understanding of the ingredients of chocolate, through the chain, from bean to bar. • To encourage the transparent sourcing of cocoa beans from the plantations, and their production in socially fair and environmentally undamaging conditions. At the Academy we want everyone to learn more about fine chocolate. We organise tastings and wine-pairings, visits, seminars and demonstrations for chocolatiers, trade buyers, deli owners, chefs, the media and the public. We also act as a specialist resource to provide advice and information on everything to do with fine chocolate, to profile the best beans and plantations, the small but growing band of specialist processors and leading British artisan producers.