Looking back on 2024

First off – HAPPY NEW YEAR!  And thanks again for all your support.

Whether you’re new to Cocoa Runners in 2024 or whether you’ve been exploring craft chocolate with us for a long time, we would like to say a huge THANK YOU for your support. It’s not an easy time for our sector, but we truly believe it’s never been more important to choose craft chocolate – for your health, for the planet, and for the makers and growers.

Next week, we’ll make a few predictions for 2025, but for now, starting off with the highlights…

• Ghana! Massive thanks to Lesley, Gideon, Kate, Greg, Kristy, Sarah, Stephen all my buddies for an amazing trip earlier in the year with visits to Cric, Accra Warehouses, CocoBod and Three Mountains. I learnt an amazing amount – and have come away with massive respect for the resilience and optimism of all the Ghanaians we met. For more, you can read my blog here.
• Craft Chocolate Fair at Fidelio. The second Cocoa Runners Craft Chocolate Fair was a huge success. Thank you so much if you came down, and particularly to those who queued. We welcomed makers from across the UK and some special European guests, hosted a sold-out run of tastings and talks, and met so many craft chocolate enthusiasts. We love the team and the space at Fidelio and will be doing more with them throughout 2025.
• Format experimentations and moving beyond the bar. It’s great to see more and more makers launching new formats (e.g. dinner party boxes of chocolate thins, neapolitans and even mini bars by Ruket, Firetree, Encuentro, Pump Street, Chocolarder and more). Plus, drinking chocolate is clearly the “new thing” as the explosive expansion of Knoops makes clear. Our Cocoatisers have been flying off the shelves this Christmas, as more of us are striving to create the perfect drinking chocolate at home.
• New makers, new origins, new bars. We travelled to San Francisco and Paris to meet new makers (and congrats again to Dandelion for crafting the world’s largest ever S’More – see here). Plus, it’s great to see more and more makers and origins – Thailand, India, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Japan to name but a few.
• More tastings. In addition to our in-person tastings at our HQ in Charterhouse Square, we’ve now kicked off a larger in-person chocolate tastings at Fidelio. We also fully launched our day-long Masterclasses in Taste and Flavour at the London School of Coffee, which has been really well received. See here for information on the courses and use the code 25MASTERCLASS for 15% off tickets for 2025. And following your enthusiasm we’ll be doing more Coffee, Tea and Wine pairing classes too!
• Podcasts. I’ve had lots of fun this year speaking to friends old and new about the wonderful world of craft chocolate on a series of podcasts. A massive thanks to Possible (Aria Finger and Reid Hoffmann), Zoe (Sarah Berry and Jonathan Wolfe), Bean to Barstool (David Nielsen) and to Dr Karan for such great conversations.

And then moving on to the challenges, particularly in the wider cocoa sector.

• Soaring cocoa prices. Commodity Prices for Cocoa have shot from around $2,500 per tonne to over $10,000 (and cocoa butter has increased even more, from around $6 per kilo to over $45). In theory this should be good news for farmers .. but for a whole bunch of reasons, much of this price rise really hasn’t trickled down – for more see here.
• Undesired and unexpected consequences from these price rises. Some of the ramifications from cocoa’s spiralling costs are predictable; mass market chocolate is now using even more palm oil, sugar, additives, etc.; bars are “shrinking”; and the quality of the cocoa which desperate mass-market producers are using is sinking even lower. There’s never been a better time to choose craft. However, there is a new challenge of finding white craft chocolate bars and even 100% craft chocolate bars as these become “priced out” and (some) makers are no longer making them. And even more tragically, some makers are choosing to end operations. Similarly, smuggling and cocoa robberies have become even more of a challenge. Armed police convoys are now being employed in Ecuador to safely transport beans and containers of barbed wire are being shipped to Madagascar to protect farms.
• Postponement of deforestation legislation. Even though the EU’s Deforestation Initiative (EUDR) was decried in some quarters for “bolting the stable door after the horse has truly bolted” given that rainforest canopy has fallen from 25% to lower than 3% in the past few decades, it clearly is (was?) a step in the right direction. And it’s a shame that corporate lobbying has – at least for now – delayed this. For more please see here.
• Brexit and export issues. More and more Brits are waking up to the challenges of Brexit for both importing and exporting cocoa and chocolate in the UK. We’ve been IOSS compliant for over 18 months now. So in theory, customers in the EU can import orders of less than 135 Euros with no import paperwork or duties on their end. But in practice, it’s still HUGELY problematic, and it’s still faster to import from Thailand or the US to the UK than from Holland or France. We are trying. Please bear with us!

…and a few other developments from the world of cocoa and chocolate:

• As well as celebrating its 200th birthday, 2024 also saw Cadbury losing its Royal Warrant. The reason wasn’t made clear .. some have speculated that it’s because their parent company (Mondelez) has refused to withdraw from Russia, others that it’s because their supply chain is still “problematic” (see this Dispatches programme).
• Cargill is now promoting allergy-free chocolate alternatives via an exclusive arrangement with the US Voyage Foods (see here). And if you want to taste this, please come to one of our Taste and Flavour day-long Masterclasses.
• Sugar – the primary ingredient in mass market confectionery is – quite rightly – coming under the spotlight. The impact of excessive sugar on health is becoming more and more clear. But also the supply chain “challenges” are also pretty horrendous (see here).

So bottom line: we’re delighted to welcome more and more you to Cocoa Runners and craft chocolate – and thank you for all your enthusiasm. 2024 was definitely interesting, and not without challenges. But we’re really looking forward to 2025; lots of new bars, new makers, tastings and events.

Keep savouring!

Spencer

P.s. we’ll do a longer post on craft chocolate and Veganuary, but if you are looking for some great vegan bars, please see here – and here for more on the links between veganism and the Giant Panda (one of the only other animals that’s moved from being an omnivore to being a herbivore or vegan).