Preparing for the 2009 Salon du Chocolat in Paris

After some lenghty tasty posts on a series of London discoveries in the past weeks, it’s time to look at Paris for the Salon du Chocolat 2009. Yep, it’s like chocolate season is officially open!

My trip last year was revealing up a whole new world of food concepts and ideas, but also a labyrinth in retail, wholesale, agents and distributors. Now that I’ve got that puzzled out a little bit more, I’m looking forward for a new visit, with some promising lookouts… Unlike last year where I felt a bit more touristy, this time I’m looking forward to meet a bunch of great people.

I’ll be travelling with Sofie from Callebaut, a super enthusiast person who’s always eager to help anyone out on new biz. I should be seeing Valerie again, the export manager from Pralus again, after our lovely passionate chat on last year’s fair. Moreover Pralus will be launching tree new Venezuela bars: a Chuao, Cuyauga and a Porcelana as well!
I’m also having sales reps from Domori on the agenda, a great brand (isn’t it KüchenLatein? ) with a distinctive signature taste that also has a reworked series of Criollo to be discovered, next to so many other things.
Then there is Clay Gordon from the US, both of us want to meet each other so I hope all goes well, and maybe he can even smuggle some US bars over here (mmmm)… I’m also tweeting back and forth with Genaro from the Salon du Chocolat, and who knows I’ll bump into Carol “ParisBreakfast” Gillot, who I got to know through Flickr, is a waterpainting artist and crazy on chocolate!
And it’s not only the 15th anniversary of the Salon, this year also hosts the biennial Salon du Chocolat Professionel, where I’d love to take a peek as well. I’m really curious how in these economic times the fair will do, as Karen from TheNibble pointed out… Stay tuned on Choqoa.com!

PS: and for those in the UK, or not making it to Paris, there’s also the London Chocolate Week (also on Twitter)