Announcing our new name: the Institute for Cacao and Chocolate Research
- Carla Martin
- 19 hours ago
- 3 min read
We are now the Institute for Cacao and Chocolate Research. Our friends call us ICCR or “the Chocolate Institute” for short.
What is ICCR? ICCR is a research organization focused on cacao and chocolate and the people who work with both.
Who works at ICCR and what do they do? Our team is made up of seasoned scholars and emerging researchers who dedicate their work to reducing information asymmetry, promoting ethics, and supporting critical thinking in the cacao and chocolate value chain through research and education.
Who does ICCR serve? We serve all those who seek to better understand cacao and chocolate, with a special focus on those we consider our ethical partners – the cacao producers without whom chocolate would not exist.
When our organization was founded in 2016, the research and industry landscape in cacao and chocolate was significantly different than it is today. The choice to include the term “fine” in our name, the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute, was both practical and symbolic: it highlighted our goal to be a part of shaping conversations around fine, specialty, craft, artisan, and quality cacao and chocolate. Like so many who are drawn to the idea of flavor and product quality as a vehicle for industry change, we imagined that we could play a role in promoting this niche segment of the cacao-chocolate market. We did, and in some ways our work still does. We also learned many times over that a focus on quality does not necessarily mean a focus on ethics, transparency, and an unwavering commitment to equality. The longstanding errors of the cacao-chocolate industry also find a home among those who identify their work as “fine.” As our knowledge of and involvement in these conversations has grown, so too has the focus of our work. Our new name fully reflects our independent, non-profit (US 501(c)(3)) status as a research organization recognized for its scholarly rigor and credibility.
Our collaborative team of public scholars expands and contracts on a project basis to create resources, weave multidisciplinary networks, and build capacity for and with our partners. We aspire to continually develop and transparently model ethical, sustainable practices in research, teaching, data stewardship, digital accessibility, publication, programming, community engagement, and public outreach, serving as a guide for other projects. Our Board of Directors is composed of academic professionals who hail from universities and research institutions and share a common characteristic: their work on cacao and chocolate is devoted to the practice of openly sharing historical and ongoing truth and applying the knowledge of this to the collaborative solving of real-world problems.
Partners: We have always worked collaboratively, as evidenced by every project that we have completed, not a single one of which has been done by our institution alone. In this new chapter, we are thrilled to announce our sisterhood with the Heirloom Cacao Preservation Fund, another U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We see our alliance with HCP as key to fulfilling one another’s missions and underlining our shared beliefs that no organization or individual in cacao and chocolate reaches any finish line alone. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements of other partnerships with like-minded organizations.
Cacao quality: Our cacao quality evaluation protocol and educational videos related to it will remain under the FCCI branding, since the FCCI name is now inextricably linked with the protocol for the Sensory evaluation of unroasted cacao beans as coarse powder. Other than that, all of our work will move under the ICCR umbrella. Read more about our work in cacao quality.
On acronyms: Cacao and chocolate are two words only; they delimit the number of acronyms that organizations can construct around their work in this space. Our new name takes on a different character, yet it is limited by the finite number of options to refer to the raw material and final product that we aim to study. Our existence has always been marked by a focus on open and generous coordination. For those who do not like sharing words or spaces with others, this name change will likely provoke the usual petty grievances and manufactured slights. For all those who welcome us and this change, we encourage you to reach out to us via the always open channels of communication that are foundational to our organizational philosophy of cooperation.
In the coming months, we at the Institute for Cacao and Chocolate Research will be announcing several exciting updates to our research and education projects. We look forward to sharing them with you.
