All about chocolate, why are prices rising, and tips for buying, using, and storing this special delicacy. Carolina Pozo, co-founder of Muze designer chocolate has some answers. Jacqueline Coleman talks English wines with Sarah Phillips.
Food, News & Views with Linda Gassenheimer
Food, News & Views, Ep 230: All About Chocolate! Carolina Pozo, English Wines, Sarah Phillips, Jacqueline Coleman
(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Linda Gastonheimer, and welcome to Food News and Views. Glad to have you joining us. What do you love chocolate? You're not alone. Americans spend about 40 billion with a B, billion dollars buying it. And have you ever thought about where chocolate comes from? Well, before you take your next bite, think about this. Chocolate prices are rising rapidly, and we're going to find out why. And we'll learn more about this delicacy. What should we look for when buying it? What's the best way to store chocolate? Our guests have some interesting answers for us. She's Carolina Pozo. She's the co-founder of Muse Chocolate. Welcome Carolina. - Thank you, Linda. I'm happy to be here. - Well, some might say you have a very delicious job. - It is delicious indeed. - Right. Can you tell us a little bit about your expertise in chocolate? - Well, yeah, the story is actually, it doesn't come out so much from the chocolate side, but from the cacao itself. So, along with... - When you say from the cacao, you mean the chocolate, people may not realize, chocolate comes in a bean, a cacao bean. - Absolutely, it's a fruit. The beans are inside a pot, it's a tree. And actually, the cacao that plants, it was the first domesticated inequity. Many people thought it was Mexico for many years, and a recent discovery actually says that the source of cacao for the world, it's Ecuador. That's where I'm from. - Is that right? Oh, I thought it was in Africa. - It's Ecuador with the source of chocolate. - Wow, that's all for the world. So, that gives you a bit of a reference of the importance of this crop, not only for Ecuador for the world. As you may know, it's a superfood. It has a lot of healing properties. It's been used since its discovery for many different reasons, not only to make chocolate. So, there's a lot of products that come from cacao, and it's very powerful. And obviously, when you say it's a human product, what did you mean? - Oh, enough for healing purposes. So, cacao rituals, for example, that are being... Nowadays, it's becoming even more common, 'cause cacao has a lot of healing properties. It's not only great for you in terms of a superfood because of its antioxidants, but it's also a mood enhancer. So, there's a lot of benefits around cacao, but there's also human sites with this, and this is to basically answer your question of how this all started. For us, we, as alongside my sister, Gabriela, we created a nonprofit back in 2008 to work with cacao farmers in the coast of Ecuador and to develop projects around sustainability, education, health, and to activate areas that are very vulnerable and live in extreme poverty. So, there's a lot of conversations around this, 'cause they're very relevant factor when you talk about the chocolate industry of where the cacao is being sourced from and who is part of this supply chain. And Ecuador being such a relevant player in the world of cacao, that's something that we wanted to start off with. So, we started working on the field with cacao farmers, providing training, providing tools, and then we decided to create a social business, which is called Muse, which is now the business that we're running, making chocolate from Ecuador, being too far to the world. - First, you started helping the farmers, then you realized there was a product there and you built a business around it. But now explain to me, why are the prices rising and rising rapidly? What's happening? - So, there are a few different factors. I guess one of the most important ones that we have to discuss is amongst where the most relevant players in the world are in terms of cacao production. So, we're talking about mostly West Africa, codivores, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana. There's a lot of problems with diseases for the plants. So, there's a decline in productivity of the crops themselves due to climate changes and due to diseases. So, they haven't been able to keep up their production levels as they have in the past. So, that's the one challenge that they have, because a lot of these diseases are not treatable. So, the plant, the trees die. So, a lot of people, they're-- - And a lot of, I understand that a lot of the major companies, the large companies, let's say, like a Hershey type of company, buy their cow beans or their chocolate from Africa. So, now that it's not coming out of there, it must be, maybe that's the major region for the prices rising. - Yeah, so, Africa is an important player with Africa. However, Ecuador, for example, and other Latin American countries are also very important. Ecuador is actually the fourth largest exporter of the cow in the world. Even though geographically speaking, we're not as big, but in terms of quantity and volume of production, we are. So, we have an advantage there in terms of what role we can play now. However, as you mentioned, big corporations in the candy industry, not so much chocolate, but in the candy industry, they don't do direct trade. They work through the commodity market, right? So, there's another factor in the price increase. 'Cause although there's a decrease or decline in the productivity level of the crops due to climate change factors, erosion, diseases, et cetera, there's also the players in the commodities still demanding and speculating. So, those are two important-- - Yeah, I think what people need to understand is that the big players, as you call them, will buy from a commodity exchange. They don't buy from a grower. They don't know where the chocolate comes from. They don't know who's made that chocolate. They just want chocolate. Whereas, for example, your company, you know who the farmer is and what they're doing and where your chocolate's coming from. So, that's a big difference, and that's a word that I learned from you when I met you earlier, was traceability. There is no traceability for most chocolate, unless we buy from a company such as Muse. But let me ask you a question then. With the prices rising as they are, should we run out and buy our chocolate right away now and keep some from holidays coming up in several months? - So, it's interesting because a lot of the big players had already pre-negotiated pricing with a lot of the purchases. So, the increase to the final consumer for the chocolate bars, you're starting to feel it, but it's such a recent increase in pricing. So, this actually started in the last quarter of last year. So, a lot of the big companies had already stopped up from Kakao. So, just to understand, we're talking about traceability, not of chocolate, but of the Kakao itself, right? So, like you mentioned, the big players by now have direct channel, there are a lot of intermediation as well in this world of other supply of Kakao, which is a very huge problem, I would say, because we're talking about the fairness of this whole industry in terms of what the farmers actually benefit from. 'Cause it might think the prices of Kakao increase, and so the farmers are benefiting from higher prices, which is not true. So, there's a lot of complication that weigh in what I would say in terms of looking at how the chocolate market is. Right now, chocolate makers, like myself, have a very important responsibility to especially innovate. This is, chocolate makers are starting to play around with different type of, a new type of ways to make chocolate or integrating new ingredients or alternative beans. - And let me try to understand this, that you're saying now that, well, there are a few problems, I think you've mentioned here. One is that farmers are not being compensated for the rise anyway, so many of them may decide to go do something else, which makes it even more of a problem as far as growing chocolate. But you're also saying that you're taking chocolate and using it in a different way. - Well, I mean, what did you mean by that? - Well, so basically, to make chocolate, you need Kakao's the main ingredient, right? But what some chocolate makers are doing is because the Kakao prices are so high, including Kakao butter, all these other semi-laborates, they're starting to play around with different type of beans. So for example, there's a different type of fruit similar to Kakao that you can simulate chocolate. - So it's not a chocolate bean, but it sort of tastes like chocolate. - So it's like a very close relative of Kakao, it's called Macambino, for example. So there's this type of initiatives around innovation that are starting to play a part. Also, some companies are starting to move into more like the snacking kind of product, like cookie type, so not full on chocolate. So there's a lot of factors that come into play because the demand for chocolate's still out there. It's still in-- - Sure, nobody wants to give me their chocolate. (laughs) Let me just-- - Let me back with that. - All right, so we may be getting chocolate that's not really chocolate, but we think it is because it tastes like it. Oh, very, very interesting information. But just quickly, before we go, if we do have chocolate, we take it and we bring it home. What do we look for when we buy the chocolate and how do we store it when we get it home? - So the temperature that is recommended is to store probably 60 to 65 Fahrenheit or 16 to 18 degrees Celsius. So just to give you a reference, there's some people who buy chocolate and store direct under fridge. That's not the way to do it. The fridge, it's not as-- You don't need to freeze your chocolate. You just need to store in room temperature and that's fine because when you put in the fridge, what will happen if your chocolate will go white because at those temperatures, the fat separates from the rest. - So that's the white we see and it's called, you called it earlier butter, but it's really the fat that comes out of the chocolate. - That doesn't mean the chocolate's gonna go bad, but just the texture and also how it looks, it will affect how it's properly kept. So ideally, room for temperature control, not exposed to extreme heat or extreme cold. - Is there, can we keep it for a year, let's say, or how long can we keep it? - Yeah, so that's up to the manufacturer. True chocolate and like in our case, Muse. We use, we don't use any less it in, we use just a pure version of cacao plus a sweetener or whichever functional ingredient we want to incorporate. So it actually doesn't expire but our lab says two years and we recommend 18 months, just so it keeps it on soil profile. But it's a product that if you can store it properly, you can consume it for years. So really it's, but it really depends on the type of manufacturer and the quality standards of it. - All right, well, that's so fascinating. I've learned so much about chocolate that I didn't, had no idea. I think many of us don't have any ideas to where has it come from? 'Cause you've got to take what you call the fruit, the bean, you've got to get the pods out of the bean and you've got to make that into your chocolate product. So, I mean. - I guess you're doing it by directly from farmers in Ecuador and making the chocolate at our own facility called cacao, housing keto. So we do the whole process bean to bar. So we don't, we're not using someone else's coverture. We're doing the whole process so there's a lot of quality control, destination and that's how what we shift to the world, especially to the US, for example, where we are selling to retailers, we're selling online and where we're trying to push people to recognize high quality chocolate made at origin. In this case, in the source of body. - So if you kind of bean to bar. Now, how do we know if we're getting buying a chocolate that is bean to bar, it won't say it on the package or perhaps you say it on your package? - Yeah, we do say it on our package 'cause it's an important attribute. So we highlight the key attributes that we're vegan, that we're bean to bar, that we do single origin cacao. This means we don't mix cacao. If I single origin, that's important to look at as well. - Yeah, and we don't use any less it either. So there's no soil or some flour, emulsifiers, and corporate, it would just use cacao. - Cacao. - Cacao chocolate. Okay, now you're making me hungry for chocolate, big time. So if we want to find out more from you about what's going on, how do we contact you and learn more? - So we have our e-commerce, we ship everywhere in the US and we can also arrange international shipping. It's meoscacao.com, that's M-U-Z-E-C-A-C-A-O.com. - Wonderful. Well, Carolina Posel, thank you so much for joining us and for that important information for those of us who love chocolate. For anyone, in any case, thank you. Well, I'm Linda Gassen-Hunmer, and this is Food News and Views. - Well, joining me now is Somalia Jacqueline Coleman. Hello Jacqueline. - Hi Linda, great to be back. - Great, well, I understand you have another wine person, friend, joining you, what's this all about? - Yes, we have a very important wine specialist with us today and she focuses on doing a lot of events here in South Florida and it's our friend Sarah Phillips McCartan. So welcome Sarah, thanks for joining us. - Thanks for having me back. It's good to be here chatting with you guys again. - Yes, we always love our conversations. So Linda, I thought we would talk a little bit about English wines since, I'm sure you can tell from the accent Sarah is from England. - Born in Brett, Florida, what do you mean? - I understand that there's been a huge change in the wine industry, you know, I used to love in London and they never had any wine in England then. So what's that? - Yeah, so I mean, we, you know, as English people have obviously had a very, very long relationship with wine as consumers of wine. We were, you know, importing Bordeaux, Port Madeira, all through, you know, for hundreds and hundreds of years. So we've loved drinking it for a very long time. And actually back, you know, hundreds of years ago, we were making some wine even back in the Roman period in England when things were a little bit warmer back then. But of course, there was a long period where, you know, wine production in England was difficult. It was far too cold to be producing quality wine. And then probably early in the sort of 20th century, people started planting these grapes that are called hybrid grapes, the sort of, their grapevines that are very good at performing well in cold climates, but they don't always produce super high quality, delicious wines. And it wasn't until actually an American couple in, you know, sort of the early 90s started producing a sparkling wine, a little bit like champagne at night in there, which is of course one of the most famous, if not the most famous producers of English sparkling. And what we've seen since then, of course, is a boom as you've alluded to. - It's so interesting because we hear a lot about this English sparkling wine. Can you tell us a little bit about the production method and maybe similarities with champagne? - Yeah, of course, of course. So about two thirds of wine that's made in England is sparkling. And the vast majority of that wine is made in exactly the same way as champagne. So using pretty much the same grape varieties. So we're focusing on Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Muni, which are of course the three main grape varieties of champagne as well. And they're made in what's called the traditional method. So this is where you start with a very, you know, high acid base wine, you put it into a bottle, you add some yeast and sugar, and there's a second fermentation. And that releases carbon dioxide, which gives you bubbles on the wine. And then that wine's gonna spend a long period of time, you know, two, three years more on the dead yeast, which is giving it that lovely texture and that sort of yeasty brioche bready type flavor that you, we all love in champagne as well. So very, very similar production style, grape varieties and of course, climate. - So I was gonna ask when it comes to climate, because a lot of these wineries are located in southern England, right? And then that's kind of similar to Northern France where champagne is. So what are the climate types in southern England? - Yeah, of course, so where southern England is, of course, the warmest part of the country and Essex in particular is, you know, kind of the warmest part. That's the, as you go east of London. So the wineries are kind of located sort of east, south and west of London. And then you have a few in the west country and kind of Cornwall and Somerset. And a couple, including some very, very good ones, actually, in Wales. So while, of course, we're in the warmest part of England, we're still in a very cold part of the world. Now, we were discussing a moment ago, just before I jumped on here, how, you know, of course, England's got warmer in recent years. As, you know, of course, the summers are getting warmer and that's helping the grapes to ripen and allowing us to produce wines in these styles. But of course, it's still cool in the grants, we're not in that, we're not in Florida, when we're in London. - Well, if I could just jump in for a minute. It was my understanding that several of the wineries, it's just general news I had. In France, we're having so much trouble with the climate is that they've moved their wineries to England, to the southern coast of England. - Yeah, so there's definitely increasing investment in English wine. And this is, you know, most famously, I suppose, Tattinger has opened, I think it's releasing the first wines this year for the start of producing wine in England. And they're, of course, still going very strong in champagne and the production levels in champagne are much, much, much higher. England in total produces 3% of what champagne produces. But I think for them, it's really more of a diversification strategy and, you know, just sort of reaching new, new consumers, of course, being able to talk to consumers who are in England and have them come for tasting room and taste lots of, you know, grape wines from, probably what they'll do is bring their champagne and their English sparkling wines together and that will work quite nicely, I think. But certainly there's a lot of confidence building in the English wine world because of some of the high quality wines that have been made in recent years. - So in addition to the sparkling wines, are there other styles being made and other grapes that they're working with in England? - Yeah, 100%. So about a third of the wine that's being produced is still. And those are, that's a real mix. So predominantly in the last, you know, 10 years at least, that's been these hybrid grapes that we've talked about. Most famously Bacchus, which tastes a little bit like Sauvignon Blanc, but rarely kind of achieves very, very high prices and too much critical acclaim. But increasingly in more recent years, we're also seeing Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, varietal expressions as well. And there's been some really kind of impressive examples of that that have been coming out, including one that I had recently, that actually I've blinded blind cases and trends on and they said it was from Oregon. So, you know, it's really surprising what the sort of wines that are coming out. And on top of that, of course, as well, there's a lot of experimentation that I've tasted some incredible orange wine from Wales, which might surprise you. So it's more diverse than you'd think, but of course, in terms of quality, in terms of refuse, in terms of what people are talking about, it's really the sparkling wine still, but it's taking some stage. - If I could just jump in for a half a second here. - Well, the English have always had a lot of champagne. In London, you would have champagne throughout the entire meal. - Mm-hmm. - Sorry. - The entire day. - Exactly. - Well, Linda, you know that that's how I also enjoy my meals. - Well, that's why you're friendly with Sarah. So anyway. (laughs) So, but you mentioned some of the other wines. Well, what were the names that you mentioned of the brands? - Yeah, so the very famous wine, it's quite a new producer called Vanbury Ridge, and they're based in the east of southeast of England, in kind of the warmest part of the country. And they're the ones that are really pioneering, these still Chardonnay's and Pinot Noir's. Unfortunately, they're not exported into the US, unless you're one of my lucky friends who gets one from my suitcase. But then the Welsh producer that I reference, there's this really interesting project as well, it's called Anka Hill. That's in London, South Wales. And they're producing some incredible traditional methods, sparkling wines, much like Champagne, but some really experimental wines as well, including that is actually an orange wine made from Albarino in Wales, farmed by dynamically. So it's a really, yeah, I know, isn't that cool? - That's a mouthful. - Yeah, I tell people about it here, they're like, "Where do I get it?" I'm like, "Wales, you can't get it." So, you know, so it's quite exciting. And I'm actually flying back to London on Tuesday and I can't wait to drink some delicious English and Welsh wines when I get back. - So, which wineries do you think we can find here in South Florida, or which ones are more widely exported to the US? - There are a number. When I first moved here a few years ago, I saw more, honestly. And the two that I see at the moment, mostly in South Florida are Dickby, which is a fantastic producer, actually part American-owned. And another one called Dusbourne. And Dusbourne is distributed by both Elamy Broadbent, who is English, he lives in Virginia. And both of those you see in and around South Florida. And I know that, for example, 305 wines down in Palmetto has Dusbourne. And they really, I mean, those really are two of the greatest producers in the South of England. - Well, and you worked at one of these wineries at one point. Which one was that? And is that one exported to the US? Can we find that one at all? - Yeah. So I went to Ridgeview. So Ridgeview State is one of the, again, one of the leading producers that they're down in Sussex. Just sort of an hour south of London, very easy to visit if you're in London, actually, on the train. They are exported. I'm not sure where they're available retail right now. But I've spoken to them a little bit recently, and I know that that's likely to be more widely available in the coming months, which is really exciting. - Well, Sarah, we've learned a lot today about English wine. But if people want to follow you and learn more about English wine, or if they have questions, and I know that you will be off to Europe here pretty soon, where can they follow you online? - The best place to find me is Instagram. So you can find me @whatsaradrinks. Very literal. You can imagine what I'm posting about on my website, which is winebysera.net. - Oh, well, we'll definitely follow along. - All right, very interesting information. - I hope we can share a glass together scene, Linda. - Well, I'm waiting. You just said that you brought it over in your suitcase. I haven't seen any suitcase wine lately. (laughs) - Well, it's totally seen. - All right, well, it's a very interesting look at a whole new area of wine coming out of England. So Sarah, thank you so much. And Jacqueline, thank you very much. Always interesting information. And I'm Linda Gassenheimer, and this is Food News and Views. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)