Vegan Chocolate Brand Gets Second Place in Artisan Flave Awards
NECTAR's Taste of the Industry 2026 report put 98 dairy-free products in front of 2,183 omnivore tasters and found 27 that at least half of them liked as much as or more than the dairy version. Those panels are built for alternatives, with a conventional benchmark sitting on the other side of the table.
The Artisan Flave Awards runs no alternatives bracket. Every entry in the Chocolate category is scored against every other entry in it, and this year the runner-up was a fully plant-based truffle. Sweet Vegan Chocolates, the Harlem company founded by Chef Andrea Young, took second with its Raspberry Royale, behind Ritual Chocolate's bourbon barrel aged bar and ahead of Keepsake Keto Candies & Chocolate.
How the scoring works
Judges taste from numbered cups and are not allowed to see the brand, owner, or manufacturer of anything in front of them. Each entry is scored from 1 to 10 by a minimum of three food professionals on appearance, aroma, texture, flavor, creativity, and overall impression, and the results are averaged. Chocolate is one of more than 40 categories in this year's Artisan results, a list otherwise dominated by hot sauce, barbecue, and honey. Second place earns a large ribbon, while the trophy goes to the category winner.
Two flavors, two years
Young's company placed third in the same category in 2025 with a different truffle, Midnight Passion, and Ritual Chocolate held first place in both years. Texture is one of the six things judges score, and Sweet Vegan builds it without dairy, nuts, gluten, soy, or preservatives. The Raspberry Royale was rated on the same sheet as everything else, with no allowance made for what was left out. In the announcement, Young said her team has always "put taste and flavor first."
[IMAGE: Product shot. The Raspberry Royale truffle, or the Indulgence 15-piece truffle box. Source from sweetvegan.nyc/pages/all-products. Fallback: skip if unavailable.]
What founders can enter next
Artisan judging for 2026 is finished, and registration for the Spicy Flave Awards is open, with early bird pricing ending August 15 and products due to be received by October 10. One product costs $75 and unlimited entries cost $525. Each category requires three shelf-stable samples, and everything has to come from a professional, inspected food facility, since home-packed products may not be entered. A category also needs at least three entries to be judged on its own, so a thin field gets folded into a General category.
The 2027 Artisan results will show how many plant-based entries turn up in the Chocolate category at all. A ribbon in a general category is a line a wholesale buyer can check without taking the founder’s word for how the chocolate tastes.
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