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Raising the (Chocolate) Bar
December 10, 2007
By Alex Palmer
Early last month, New York hosted the 10th Annual Chocolate Show, an event that included over 90 booths from a variety of chocolate vendors, a gallery of chocolate sculptures and even a chocolate fashion show.
Beyond the chocolate fountains and endless plates of samples, the offerings stood out for their increasing focus on origin-conscious, carefully crafted "artisan chocolates," and indicated a wider interest in this type of chocolate in the corporate gifting market. The origin of the cocoa bean and process of preparation is becoming increasingly important as people and businesses choose which products to buy and give as gifts.
"Chocolate is on the same trajectory that coffee was on like fifteen years ago," says Deborah Music, vice president of sales and marketing for Theo Chocolate, a Seattle, Wash.—based chocolatier that attended the show. Offering several corporate gift boxes of organic chocolates, its products include signature Theo Origin bars, which draw particular attention to which regions the cocoa bean was grown in. "People are really starting to understand that it's an agricultural crop and the concept of terroir, as it applies to wine…actually applies to cacao as well."
As corporate incentives and gifts, these artisan chocolates are getting more in demand as gift-givers become concerned with presenting a more sophisticated image to clients or award recipients. "When you give a gift, the gift has to be of the same caliber of whatever your service is. And if you find that your service is high-end, you're not going to give a cheesy gift," says Leann VanDerHeyden, marketing and mail order marketing specialist for Burlington, Vt.—based Lake Champlain, which has a large corporate gifting segment. "It's an experience for the recipient, and I think [the reward buyers] realize that."
The chocolate is also being enjoyed in a corporate group environment through increasingly popular chocolate tastings. Many chocolatiers, including New York—based Michel Cluizel and La Maison du Chocolat, are offering these tastings, where groups learn about the history and process of cocoa, and pair the chocolates with wine or tea to get a better sense of its ingredients and culinary nuances. The chocolatiers are even taking the tastings on the road, for corporate events or incentive trips.
"This is a huge success in our corporate sector, because a lot of times banks or law firms or advertising firms want to invite the client to thank them or simply do teambuilding," says Nora Hovanesian-Mann, director of New York operations for La Maison du Chocolat. The company has even gone across the country to hold tastings at hotels, and could incorporate some sweet elegance into an incentive travel event.
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