Impression and Highlights from the 2022 Fancy Food Show in Las Vegas
Editor’s note: The Chocolate Professor founder, Adam Levy, attended the Winter Fancy Food Show where he met with producers, retailers, and experts. This was the first in-person Winter Fancy Food Show since 2020.
This year the Winter Fancy Food Show moved its show from its longtime home base of San Francisco to the Las Vegas Convention Center. The show was well attended by domestic and international buyers and exhibitors. Everyone was happy to see each other and sample each other's wares. The international pavilions including Spain, France, and Italy all had a strong visible presence at the show.
Chocolate Highlights
Most of the fine chocolate exhibitors were in one row with several of them standing out. Susana ibarra from LOK Chocolates presented their fine cocoa product line. The Columbian producer 85% Cacao Content Dark Chocolate Bar was one of my favorites from their portfolio.
From the Colombian rainforest, Lök uses fine flavor cacao, which assures their chocolate’s unique taste and texture.
Arcelia Gallardo from Mission Chocolate who has a chocolate factory in Brazil had a well-attended booth. Arcella is an experienced chocolatier whose Brazilian Harvests 70% gave me a reason to visit her booth more than once during the show.
Mission Chocolate Brazil Biomes collection highlights rare, endangered, wild, and unique fruits and seeds that are native to Brazil. It is also a minority woman-owned business.
Valrhona Chocolate was one of the few chocolate companies exhibiting with their own plantations to ensure their cocoa met their high quality standards. Multiple attendees were requesting to taste their Dark Chocolate 61% Eclats and Caraibe 66% stick.
Valrhona is a B CORP certified company, which meets rigorous standards of performance, accountability, and transparency in both social and environmental concerns.
The Jelly Belly Candy Company displayed their expanding Harry Potter chocolate collection as well as their cocktail classic jelly bean collection including new flavors of Gin & Tonic and Moscow Mule.
FCIA Seminar
One of the highlights of the show was the well-attended seminar led by Matt Caputo from Caputos who presented a seminar sponsored by the Fine Chocolate Industry Association (FCIA) There was a good mix of domestic and international chocolate producers as well as retailers who wanted to know how to start a chocolate program and or enhance their existing ones. One running theme I picked up during the presentation and attendees' questions is to present Fine Chocolate as an affordable luxury that can be shared with others.
Matt shared how a well-run fine chocolate program is able to deliver good margins for retailers who treat chocolate like their cheese program. That education can drive experimentation by sharing your knowledge with consumers in your aisles, classes in person and zoom tastings with sample packs shipped to them.
Overall I was very happy I attended the Winter Fancy Food Show in its new location in Las Vegas. Everyone in the trade was happy to be in front of others and not just seeing each other on a zoom call or tasting out of a box that was sent to you. I look forward to the Summer Fancy Food Show in New York