Penn State brings back summer chocolate short course after decadeslong hiatus

This summer, for the first time in nearly three decades, the department of food science in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences will host the Penn State Chocolate Short Course, a unique offering for not only craft and industrial chocolate manufacturers, but also entrepreneurs interested in starting up a new chocolate business.

While it’s been quite a while since the university hosted this particular course, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been working behind the scenes, researching chocolate and impacting the industry in big ways.

According to Gregory Ziegler, distinguished professor of food science and director of graduate studies in the department of food science, Penn State’s expertise in the chocolate industry is extensive.

He dates the university’s research in chocolate and confectionery to about the 1920s and “pretty continuously since probably the early 1960s.” He said early on there was a lot of work on the chemistry of chocolate.

“When I started working on it — I’m a food engineer — I started doing a lot of work on the processing, the technology and the manufacturing of chocolate. More recently, my colleague in the department, Josh Lambert, has conducted work on the health benefits of cacao,” Ziegler said. “My colleague and someone else that’s also involved in the course, Helene Hopfer, is a sensory scientist and we’ve focused a lot on the sensory qualities of chocolate because, in the end, it’s all about taste and texture and the sensory pleasure that people get from chocolate.”

In sensory evaluation, Ziegler said the goal is to define the attributes of chocolate that are important to consumers, in order to improve the quality or sensory experience that consumers get.

“In Dr. Lambert’s work in health benefits, one of the objectives there would be to say, ‘OK, can we find ways to process cacao that would lead to the best eating quality, but also maintain the most health benefits?’ So those are the kind of things we’re looking at, at this point,” he said.

The university, he also said, boasts considerable connections in cacao-growing regions and even grows cacao at the University Park campus.

So how does this research on Penn State’s campus translate to the sweet treats you might find on your grocery store shelf? That information is “probably proprietary,” but Ziegler did say Penn State’s substantial gains in understanding have been reflected in industry applications and, over the years, research has directly led to changes in the industry.

The 2022 short course will still — as it always has — focus on the science and technology of chocolate making, with two distinct changes. This year’s course will include information on technologies and equipment, and the business of chocolate.

There was a good reason for the short course’s hiatus. “We put on the short course in the mid-’90s,” said Ziegler, “but in the mid-’90s, there were only about what we call six primary bean processors — that is, people that take cocoa beans and make chocolate out of them. There had been a lot of consolidation in the industry ... By the time we had basically educated those companies’ employees, there just wasn’t demand for the course.”

However, he noted that, over the years, the number of craft chocolate manufacturers has grown exponentially, bringing new needs for Penn State’s educational opportunities in the field. The term “craft” refers primarily to chocolate manufacturers working on a small scale, Ziegler explained, processing under approximately a few hundred tons of beans per year.

“We have, some estimate, upwards of 300 small chocolate manufacturers in the U.S. now. We felt that now was an opportune time to reintroduce the short course and refocus it, to some extent, more on craft chocolate manufacturers,” he said.

The course is limited to 30 participants. In addition to Penn State’s experts involved with the course, other experts coming in to participate include Alan McClure, founder of Patric Chocolate, Greg D’Alesandre from Dandelion Chocolate and Sarah Bharath from Meridian Cacao.

While Ziegler promises attendees a scientific approach, he also warns that participants should be ready to “get your hands dirty,” with activities including making and tasting chocolate, and comparing products manufactured at the university. It’s the scientific approach, though, that he said makes Penn State stand apart as the go-to place for craft and industry manufacturers to continue their education.

“I think there’s a lot of ‘common wisdom’ out there that might not be so science and engineering-based. I think we bring that kind of approach to it. We don’t want to remove any of the art from what people do, but there’s a lot of misinformation out there. I think one thing we do is bring clarity to the science. We also have that depth of experience,” he said.

For more information about the Penn State Chocolate Short Course, visit web.cvent.com/event/534c0d63-9902-48bf-8610-0302f6ccb281/summary.