This is one of The Food Channel’s Top 10 Chocolate Trends for 2012, based on research conducted in conjunction with CultureWaves® and the International Food Futurists®. For the full list, click here.
Crowdsourced Chocolate. Call it whatever you want: mash-up, personalization, customization. This trend says that chocolate is showing up with some unusual combinations in what we call a mash-up of ingredients. After all the ways Americans have reinvented chocolate over the last few years, what else is left? We’ve made it darker, we’ve learned the cacao percentages, and we’ve created new candy bars and combined all kinds of flavors. And now we’re taking recipes and making them chocolate (or more chocolate) by combining flavors. The influence of social media is obvious here, starting with a whole group of people on Twitter who are devoted to chocolate. They range from people like @Chocolatereview who talk about chocolate, to companies such as @theochocolate and @MenChocFactory, and they all point out new products and new trends in chocolate. It’s enough to make us ready to take all of the collective knowledge and apply it (which is exactly what we did in our Cupcake Mash Up).
For more evidence, see:
Chocolate: Facebook Campaign Case Study
Recipe evidence:
