Tag Archives: Angus Kennedy.

Kennedy’s World Chocolate Forum 2014

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I was lucky to be invited to attend the Kennedy’s World Chocolate Forum on Oct 2nd 2014 at the London British Library. Running for the past three years, it is the only Summit in the world that has been created to discuss chocolate. 300 producers attend the event and some are from the biggest companies in the world.

Kennedy’s World Chocolate Forum 2014 anguskennedy

Kennedy’s World Chocolate Forum 2014
It was a truly extraordinary experience trying different type of chocolates and finding out about choices regarding their production.

Angus Kennedy, founder of the event, born into a publishing family that was already dealing with confectionary, is a very spiritually driven intellectual; he believes the soul will always lead you to what you are meant to do in the end. His major passion, beside chocolate of course, lies in writing and he has already written lots of books. He admits: “The best jobs are always the ones you create for yourself and not certainly the ones, you get offered!” A lot of people contributing to the production of chocolate are indeed entrepreneurs involved in creative stuff. Angus Kennedy, honestly admitted, despite every exams he took he failed, he became a prolific writer. He loves children and is aware of many issues that are often not addressed to make things better for them. He is currently writing a children’s book and, if he would ever become famous as a children writer, it would be quite ironic for children to get inspiration from.

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Mr Kennedy is aware it is always extremely hard when you set up a new business but he remarks: ”Success is the ability to fail continuously and be happy every time because one day you will succeed”. He was very close to achieve his biggest dream, having a TV programme about chocolate, but it did not work out in the end. Life is made of many knock backs but it is important to have the ability to be happy with failure and proceed even when keeping on failing. His motto: “You can succeed all the times but one day you will fail and you can fail all the times but one day you will succeed”.

His latest published book: ‘Good Reasons for Bad Things’ [reviewed here on Frost] is made of 222 maxims such as: “I don’t buy chocolate to stay healthy but I stay healthy so that I can eat chocolate”. Mr Kennedy, which is into tarots, numerologist, universalism, etc. He started writing maxims as he kept on waking up in the middle of the night at 2:22am; he looked into the meaning behind it and this is how he has 222 maxims in the book. As it happened to him waking up at the same time every night, he realised to have been chosen to write about things as if inspired by external forces. He loves writing to make people laugh.

As I randomly open his latest book, I read a maxim: “One must not be too friendly to the English, they are not used to it and the shock can be highly damaging to our health.” And he admits: “Rude!” I have a good laugh at it and certainly do not let that bother my interview proceedings!

He remarks, there has got to be a TV programme about chocolate one day because chocolate is a product that is the expression of freedom and represents a moment of pleasure. Moments of freedoms are very rare nowadays in the society we live in where we are more and more concerned about time and making money when, at least over the weekend, we should definitely be taking time away to relax and let go the week past behind. And this is where came the idea of his blog Friday Light, which quickly raised from 50 readers to 13.000 ones! Really I could not say Mr Kennedy does not come up with the most interesting ideas!

Without denying chocolate is the second most fattening product in the world together with butter it has yet to be understood the more cocoa butter you take out during the chocolate making process, the less it becomes chocolate, so there is no point even conceiving a healthy chocolate… it will be like making wine without grapes!

The most heated argument at the forum was regarding the global transit which is going to happen within the next 5-10 years; China, South Africa, Brazil, India and Russia markets
will be all doubling in size, which means there is not going to be much cocoa left for Europe. According to this trend for 2020 it will be needed to increase the supply of cocoa for Europe and the producers are discussing where it is possible to invest some money to increment some farming in Ivory Coast ideally accordingly to fair trade standards. It has been argumented the only problem with fair trade production is often the increased costs attached to it since the majority of consumers tend to go for cheaper products rather than the fair trade ones but of course the issue has yet to be raised to support, for what it is possible, the importance and fairness of acting within the fair trade production standards.

Written by Paola Berta

Good Reasons For Bad Things By Angus Kennedy

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Good reasons for bad things Angus KennedyThis is Angus Kennedy’s second book. His first, The Kitchen Baby, is reviewed here. His second book is different from his first as it is a book of 222 maxims that came to Angus in the early morning, or as he says, channeled through him, don’t let that put you off if you don’t believe in it. I love maxims myself, the right maxim at the right moment can propel you through the day or help with a tough situation.

I also love the line; ‘I survive like many of us do, within a self-manufactured life of complete chaos.’ A brilliant line that is relevant to all. Now, on to the maxims; there is 222 maxims that came to Angus at 2:22am every night for two weeks. The maxims are great and you will, of course, have a favourite. Here are a few:

The real winner is the one that doesn’t create losers

Judge other people and the sentence will invariably fall upon yourself

Strength is needed to fight; true strength is needed to stop

I thought this was a great book, I believe Angus when he said the maxims were channeled through him but I don’t believe in channeling myself. Which may sound like a contradiction but I also have faith without religion so there you go.

Angus is also doing a special chocolate and book deal with this book which is out on January 2014. Definitely get your hands on one of those!

The Kitchen Baby | Book Review

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The Kitchen Baby is about the author delivering his fifth child on the kitchen floor of the family’s Kent farmhouse without medical assistance. It also tells the story of how the author became a father. Five times! Through infertility, going broke and all of the problems that holding a relationship together brings. It is a story of triumph over adversity.

The Kitchen Baby is a well written and thoughtful book. Men really do not have much of a voice when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth. True, they are not the ones that carry the baby for nine months and give birth, but they are still a large part of raising a child. That said, I do not think this book is just for men, women will enjoy it too.

More men should write books about pregnancy and fatherhood. It is an untapped market. Quite often men are just left to fend for themselves. Or course women are the ones that go through pregnancy and childbirth, but it takes both parents to raise a child. Men go through all of those sleepless nights too. No one should have to suffer on their own and fathers never get enough credit.

The Kitchen Baby is not just a book about the author delivering his fifth child in the kitchen of the family home, it is also about a man who didn’t want children becoming a father of five, even through fertility problems and the other obstacles that life throws.

The book flows very well and Kennedy is obviously a talented writer. He has a very natural and entertaining style. Angus does have a tendency to go off subject occasionally, but it does not harm the book and he is a good writer and the book works. It is entertaining and informative. I really enjoyed it and I recommend it for both sexes, whether they are parents or not.

The Kitchen Baby is available here.

The World’s First Chocolatiers’ Convention. What’s Hot in Chocolate

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Frost recently got a golden ticket to The World’s First Chocolatiers’ Convention, and yes, we were just as excited as the kids in the Wille Wonka film. The convention was organised by Kennedy’s Confection Magazine and we heard the best and most impressive chocolate makers talk. A.Boyd Tunnock was a particular favourite. I had a good chat with Boyd who invented the Tunnock tea cake in 1960. He is as nice as he is brilliant.

Here are my highlights.

Pekka Rantala, managzing director of OY Karl Fazer, talked about Fazer becoming a €1.6 billion company. Fazer have teamed up with Angry Birds to make some really cool Angry Birds sweets. Okay, they are not chocolate but they are bang on trend. Check out the cool video below.

Next up was Peter Meadows from California Raisins. Peter says that raisins are just dried out grapes. The grapes are picked and layed out to dry. They are harvested in late August and there is a two-to-three week drying process. Raisins are 1 £500 million industry. In Tesco raisins are the second biggest bagged snack after Maltesers.

A. Boyd Tunnock CBE is the grandson of the founder and the inventor of the Tunnock Tea Cake. Tunnock’s was started in 1890 by Thomas Tunnock. They expanded in the 1950’s. Tunnock’s makes 9 million biscuits a week at their Uddingston factory and Boyd says, ‘When success comes you have no idea how, you just keep going.’

Boyd’s eldest gandson, Colin, works for Cadbury. Boyd says that he has a toy store compared to them but he is happy with it.

9 out of 10 people eat chocolate.

Sophi Tranchell MBE, managing director of farmer-owned Divine Chocolate. Average income for a cocoa farmer is £328 per year. 80% of the chocolate industry is owned by three companies. When a survey was done in West Africa only one child out of 250 wanted to be a cocoa farmer. Divine Chocolate are impressive. They aim to improve the livelihood of cocoa farmers in West Africa. Chocolate for those who want to buy ethically.

Francisco Redruello is a senior food analyst and had some great information and Willie Harcourt-Cooze. Willie is a well known chocolate maker and entrepreanur who came to fame in Channel 4 documentary Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory. We tried some of his chocolate and it is good.

Body language expert Judi James then turned the lights on and gave us all chocolate. She gave an excellent talk on chocolate and body language and then said what our chocolate eating habits meant. Judi says we only share chocolate to make ourselves look good, but I don’t believe her. Do you?

Predictions in the chocolate industry from Angus Kennedy.

Personalisation of the product.
Bolder tastes like cheese & wine, pumpkin, chilli, olive oil, bacon and carrot.
More indulgence. Chocolate with an indulgent appeal.
Smaller packets. As the recession kicks in, packs get smaller but stay the same price.
Sharing. 56% of people like to share.
Healthier chocolate. For people who are lactose intolerant for example. Did you know that 90% of people in Africa are lactose intolerant and 70% in United Kingdom and 20% in all of Europe.