Académie Française du Chocolat et de la Confiserie will award its 2006 prize to a number of the organisation's scientists at a ceremony in Paris scheduled for 11 May.
Dominique Berry, director of tree crops department, Christophe Montagnon, adviser on the coffee and cocoa commodity chain and Michel Barel, cocoa commodity chain researcher with the Quality of Tree Crop Products Internal Research Unit, were all commended.
émile Cros, cocoa commodity chain researcher with the Quality of Tree Crop Products Internal Research Unit and Albertus Eskes, cocoa commodity chain researcher with the Controlling Pests and Diseases in Tree Crops Internal Research Unit were also recognised.
The aim of CIRAD, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, is to contribute to development through research and trials, training, dissemination of information, innovation and appraisals. Its expertise spans the life sciences, human sciences and engineering sciences and their application to agriculture and food, natural resource management and society.
The Académie française du chocolat et de la confiserie was founded in 1998, and has forty elected members. Its remit is to encourage quality and excellence, by promoting and defending quality chocolate.
The Académie meets three times a year - twice in Paris and once elsewhere in the country. Each year, the Académie française du chocolat et de la confiserie awards a prize recognising individuals or organisations who have made a significant difference for the chocolate industry.
The 2000 prize was awarded to Professor Christian Cabrol for his medical work on the merits of chocolate. In 2001, it was Senator Michel Pelchat and MP Jean-Yves Le Déaut who were honoured for their parliamentary lobbying against vegetable fats.
In 2002, the French Academy member Erik Orsenna was chosen for his books, and the 2003 laureate was the restaurant critic Jean-Luc Petit-Renaud. In 2004, it was the chef Gaston Lenôtre, and in 2005, the Académie chose cocoa smallholders from several producing countries.