A Day of Chocolate

A Day of Chocolate takes over the Sorby Room, Wager Building, Whiteknights Campus on Friday 13 November, a full day of talks, panels and tastings run by the Institute for Cacao and Chocolate Research (ICCR). It's a public day, so you don't need to be a student or a researcher to come along and spend the day with it.

The programme is wide-ranging. There are presentations from researchers at the University of Reading, the University of Cambridge and the University of Durham, and two panels: one on sustainability, moderated by Katie Sampeck and Herbert Erquicia, and a closing one on specialty chocolate, moderated by José López Ganem. Between the talks, there's a tasting with Eco Cacao, Islands Chocolate, Pump Street Chocolate and Nicola's Chocolate, so you'll be tasting as well as listening.

The topics cover a lot of ground. There's the making of Reading's Centenary Bar and chocolate in London between 1650 and 1720; micro-botanical and ancient DNA clues in cocoa archaeology; Net-Zero goals on African cocoa farms; cocoa diseases in Trinidad; and climate change's impact on the crop's future. It brings together people from the sciences, agriculture, the humanities and social sciences, alongside Indigenous community members and fine chocolate makers.

Behind it is the ICCR, formerly the FCCI, a scholar-led nonprofit founded in 2015 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which focuses on research and education on fine cacao and chocolate and on reducing information asymmetry in the value chain. Executive Director José López Ganem, a Boston University faculty member, has led the institute for over a decade; board member Carla Martin is Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies in Harvard's Department of African and African American Studies. The day is supported by The British Academy, ICCR, R-LAC, Eco Cacao, Nicola's, Semilla, PUMP STREET LIMITED and Islands Chocolate. It runs from 10:00 to 17:00 and is free to attend.