The Chocolate Conservatory

What does it take to preserve the intangible heritage of cacao and chocolate? Two architects who built two of the world’s most ambitious chocolate museums join host Jose Lopez Ganem: Ana Rita García Lascuráin, founder of MUCHO – Museo del Chocolate in Mexico City, and Eugenio Guarducci, founder of Eurochocolate and the Città del Cioccolato in Perugia, Italy. Together they discuss how a restored 1909 house and Perugia’s historic Mercato Coperto became cultural engines for their cities, the business of museums you can eat, La Cacaotera, a new regional cacao museum in Villahermosa, Tabasco, plans for a chocolate factory and museum in Côte d’Ivoire, the widening gap between farmgate and retail prices, and a proposal born live on air: an international association of cacao and chocolate museums.

Our two guests show that architects may be the unlikely guardians of chocolate’s story.

Ana Rita García Lascuráin is a Mexico City architect with more than three decades of work in art and architecture, and the founder of MUCHO – Museo del Chocolate (https://mucho.org.mx). The museum occupies a restored 1909 house at Milán 45 in Colonia Juárez, and every new exhibition there inspires its own line of chocolates, currently including huitlacoche bonbons. Ana Rita also helped shape La Cacaotera, the regional cacao museum in Villahermosa, Tabasco, together with a group of colleagues that included the Institute for Cacao and Chocolate Research, which helped locate and repatriate archaeological pieces for its permanent exhibition (https://www.chocolateinstitute.org/post/repatriation-of-cacao-related-archeological-pieces-to-us-southwest-and-mesoamerica).

Eugenio Guarducci is an architect, the founder of Eurochocolate (https://www.eurochocolate.com), and the creator of the Choc Hotel, the Costruttori di Dolcezze chocolate brand, and the Città del Cioccolato (cittadelcioccolato.it). The museum gave new life to Perugia’s historic Mercato Coperto and is now home to the Cacao of Excellence lab. Heading to Italy this month? Eurochocolate returns to Perugia’s historic center November 13–22 for its 32nd edition, under the theme “Fate Dolci.” Strolling the festival is free, and the Città del Cioccolato is open daily just steps away.

Heading to Italy this month? Eurochocolate 2026 runs from Friday, November 13 to Sunday, November 22 in Perugia’s historic center. It is the festival’s 32nd edition, with the theme “Fate Dolci.” Strolling the streets and stalls is free, and the Città del Cioccolato is open daily, so you can pair the two. Full program at eurochocolate.com.

What do we actually know about the US specialty chocolate consumer? Estelle Tracy, Barb Genuario, and Geneviève Leloup, colleagues who work daily at the intersection of chocolate makers and the people who enjoy their bars, join our hosts to dig into the findings of the recently published 2026 US Specialty Chocolate Consumer Survey and Market Study from the Institute for Cacao and Chocolate Research. Together they test the numbers against their own experience in the field, ask which results ring true and which surprise, and chart the next steps for an ambitious research agenda shaped by what chocolate makers across the country most want to know. Along the way, they celebrate makers and products that have recently delighted them, including Kessho, Castronovo, ChocoMotions, Bonnat, Guittard, Tony’s Chocolonely, Mount Pleasant, Blue Spruce, Maüa, Orinoco , and Standout. Read the full report: https://www.chocolateinstitute.org/u-s-specialty-chocolate-consumer-survey

Our three guests bring the survey's findings face-to-face with the people who live these questions every day.

Barb Genuario is a chocolate writer and educator, co-founder of the DC Chocolate Society, and one of the organizers of the Midwest Craft Chocolate Festival in Rushville, Indiana (midwestcraftchocolatefestival.com); follow her chocolate adventures at @chocochaser.

Estelle Tracy is a chocolate sommelier and the founder of 37 Chocolates and the Chocolate Educator Workshop, where she hosts tastings designed for connection and forms others to do the same —find her at 37chocolates.com and on Instagram at @37chocolates.

Geneviève Leloup is a chocolate sommelier and the founder of ChocoMotions (chocomotions.com), pioneering confections made with cacao pulp—she's on Instagram at @chocomotions, and she also moonlights as manager at Diamond Custom Machines (DCM), so if you have interesting questions about chocolate-making machinery, she's your person.

What can a potsherd tell us about a chocolate bar? Three leading archaeologists that have focused part of their work in cacao—Patricia L. Crown, PhD, whose discovery of cacao residues in Chaco Canyon pottery rewrote the story of chocolate in North America; Cameron McNeil, PhD, an archaeobotanist whose work traces cacao through ancient Mesoamerica; and Kathryn Sampeck, PhD, a historical archaeologist of chocolate and colonialism—join our hosts to excavate the deep past hiding in every chocolate bar, from ritual drinking vessels to colonial marketplaces.

Canonical books in cacao — dig deeper with our guests' essential works:

Patricia L. Crown (ed.), The House of the Cylinder Jars: Room 28 in Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon (University of New Mexico Press, 2020) -- documenting the re-excavation of the room that held Chaco's famed cylinder jars, in which Crown and Jeffrey Hurst identified the first evidence of chocolate north of the US–Mexico border (https://muse.jhu.edu/book/78107)

Cameron L. McNeil (ed.), Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao (University Press of Florida, 2006) -- bringing together archaeologists, historians, art historians, linguists, botanists, and anthropologists to explore the domestication, preparation, and significance of cacao in ancient and modern communities of the Americas (https://floridapress.org/9780813033822/chocolate-in-mesoamerica/ Project MUSE)

Stacey Schwartzkopf & Kathryn E. Sampeck (eds.), Substance and Seduction: Ingested Commodities in Early Modern Mesoamerica (University of Texas Press, 2017) -- tracing how chocolate, sugar, alcohol, tobacco, and other seductive substances became a nexus of desire for pleasure and profit in Mesoamerica since colonial times (https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477313879/)

What happens to chocolate when it no longer begins with the cacao bean? Ahrum Pak, founder of Win-Win, acompany to bring cocoa-free chocolate to market using fermented ingredients like barley and carob, and Luciano Bueno, founder and CEO of GALY, a Boston-based biotech growing cotton and cacao directly from plant cells, join our hosts to discuss the promise and growing pains of a nascent alternatives industry— Would the industry endorse this work? Would the consumer celebrate, fear, or overlook these solutions? Hear their side of the story here.

Learn more about Win Win: https://www.eatwinwin.com/

Learn more about http://galy.co/: https://galy.co/

Dr. Shadrack Osei Frimpong, founder of Cocoa 360, and recent Harvard graduate and ICCR Research Fellow Dara Adamolekun join our hosts to discuss pressing sustainability questions related to traceability and transparency and farmer health.

Connect with our guests via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sfrimpong/https://www.linkedin.com/in/daraadamolekun/ and learn more about Cocoa 360 here: https://cocoa360.org/

Most modern chocolate doesn’t end in a solid bar, and it is through the craft of Mexican chocolatier Luis Robledo—using chocolate couverture made from cacao beans produced by Hugo Francisco Chávez and his team at Agrofloresta Mesoamericana—that we can tell a different story. An unusual conversation between a chocolatier and a cacao producer, hailing from the same country, discusses the future of specialty confectionery, the hard work required to get things right throughout the supply chain, and offers an open invitation to explore Mexico sustainably through the senses.

Connect with our guests via LinkedIn: Luis Robledo https://www.linkedin.com/in/luis-robledo/

Learn more about Agrofloresta Mesoamericana here https://agroflorestamesoamericana.com/ or taste their work via SleepWlalk Chocolateria in the US (https://www.darkmattercoffee.com/collections/sleep-walk-chocolateria) or Sprügli in the EU and Switzerland (https://www.spruengli.ch/en/shop/chocolate-bars/grand-cru-selva-zoque-chocolate-80.html).

Taste the Mexico 66% by Republica del Cacao by placing an order here https://republicadelcacao.com/en/product/chocolate-negro-mexico-66/ or visiting Tout Chocolat in Mexico City https://www.toutchocolat.mx/ or Mayaguel in Houston, TX https://www.toutchocolat.mx/

Discussing education for chocolate professionals, Penn State Emeritus Professor Greg Ziegler and CacaoLab Executive Director Claudia Delbaere share lessons learned from teaching generations of students in established institutions, as well as the constraints that the ever-changing supply chain imposes on chocolate manufacturing and the mastery of confectionery formulation.

Learn more about educational opportunities at CacaoLab: https://www.cacaolab.be/

Sign up for the upcoming PSU Short Chocolate Course June 22-26, 2026: https://web.cvent.com/event/d930b4b6-9877-4b62-8bd4-df82b22bd1d9/summary

Connect with our guests via LinkedIn:

Claudia Delbaere https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudiadelbaere/

Greg Ziegler https://www.linkedin.com/in/grgryrzglr/

Cornell University Professor Alex M. Nading, a medical anthropologist, joins host Carla Martin to discuss the epidemic of chronic kidney disease of nontraditional causes (CKDnt) among Nicaragua's sugarcane plantation workers.

Find Dr. Nading's book via Duke University Press: https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-kidney-and-the-cane ; or in a library near you: https://search.worldcat.org/

Hawai'i meets Puerto Rico in this discussion of cacao production in the United States! Dr. Viviana Medina of V.M.R. Consulting and Dave Elliott of O'ahu Resource Conservation and Development Council join host Jose Lopez Ganem.

Connect with our guests via LinkedIn: Vivana Medina

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivianamedina/

Tickets for the HCCA Conference in Hawaii July 10-12, 2026:

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/hawaiichocolateandcacaoassociation/2172522

Engage Oahu RC&D's programing here:

https://oahurcd.org/

Emory University Professor Peter Roberts, an economic sociologist, joins Carla to discuss the commodification of specialty coffee producers and the industry's obsession with a narrative of supply and demand.

Connect with Dr. Robert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-roberts-51105374/

Order Dr. Robert's book from Oxford University Press: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/from-supply-and-demand-to-numbers-networks-and-narratives-9780198871460?cc=us&lang=en ; or find it in a library near you: https://search.worldcat.org/

Zurich University of Applied Sciences Professor Tilo Hühn describes his lengthy career in food technology innovation and the ways in which Switzerland remains a center of leadership in education and entrepreneurship in chocolate.

Connect with Dr. Huhn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tilohuehnprocessdesign/?locale=en

Learn more about ZHAW's course, "The Science and Art of Chocolate": https://www.zhaw.ch/en/lsfm/continuing-education/detail/course/cas-the-science-and-art-of-chocolate

Harvard historian Emmanuel Akyeampong and Fuad Mohammed Abubakar of Ghana's Cocoa Marketing Company join Carla to discuss how Ghana's cocoa pricing developed and the challenges and pitfalls of navigating farmgate pricing in a volatile futures market.

Google Drive Folder to Fuad Mohammed Abubakar charts mentioned during the episode: https://tinyurl.com/uzxfetfb

More Resources about our Guests:

Read Professor Akyeampong's book Independent Africa for more on the history of cocoa in Ghana: https://iupress.org/9780253066657/independent-africa/

Find Fuad's articles on Ghana and cocoa pricing here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qxdVjKwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra

Find Fuad's Linkedin here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fuadabubakarmohammed/

In this trailer, our hosts Carla D. Martin and Jose Lopez Ganem introduce themselves, and the premise of the podcast! Listen in to learn more about why it is important to discuss the pressing issues related to cacao and chocolate.