The 9th Round Table Cocoa, due to the Covid-19 crisis, will take place as web-based event on June 3rd 2021. The organisers under Dr. Daniel Kadow have prepared a compact lecture programme with the title “Post-harvest processing, cocoa bean quality and sensory standards – Where do we stand?”. The participation is free of charge. All presentations will be video-streamed from the Helmut Schmidt Auditorium in Hamburg, Germany.
The keynote presentations are: “Short peptides in cocoa – products of fermentation and precursors for aroma volatiles” (Prof. Dr. Nikolai Kuhnert, Jacobs University); “Relevant contaminants in processed cocoa: sources, minimizing concepts, regulatory development for Mineral Oil Hydrocarbons and Acrylamide” (Dr. Frank Heckel, Food Chemistry Institute of the Association of the German Confectionery Industry); “Transforming the spontaneous cocoa fermentation process into a steered one: the contribution of (meta)genomics” (Prof. Dr. Stefan Weckx, Vrije Universiteit Brussel); “Decoding the fine flavor properties of chocolates – towards a better understanding of fine aroma attributes and the development of standardized training samples for sensory panels. Including a joint tasting of four chocolate samples” (Prof. Dr. Irene Chetschik ,ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, and Karin Chatelain, ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences Member of the Cocoa of Excellence Programme Technical Committee).
There will also be room for discussion in the online format this year. Questions to the presenters can therefore be submitted already before the symposium via email (info@rundertischkakao.de) or when registering for the 9th Round Table on its homepage. During the symposium, questions can be submitted via a chat function or directly asked through joining the livestream. During the presentations a “virtual chocolate tasting” will take place. If guests would like to participate in the tasting, the organisers will send them the chocolate to an address of their choice. Please select the option “Chocolate Tasting” when registering.
