The Department of Information Technology at the Faculty of Food and Agriculture of the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague has been focusing on innovative approaches to cocoa quality assessment within the Cacao-Tech project for a long time. A key part of the project is also the connection of scientific research with practice, which allows the verification of theoretical knowledge directly in real operation.

Participation in the February conference brought just such an opportunity. Cocoa conference within Amsterdam Cocoa Week, where members of the department established cooperation with the entrepreneur By Michaela Dohnálková, founder of the brand Myszina chocolate. She provided the KIT team with space to test the quality of cocoa beans directly in her production facility, with which she herself works. The expert team thus had the opportunity to test their technical equipment in an authentic environment and at the same time obtain valuable data from practice. The information collected will be used not only for further scientific research, but above all for training models for more precise parameter settings when assessing the quality of cocoa beans. The newly established cooperation only confirms the importance of connecting the academic environment with the business sphere and shows how modern technologies and data approaches can be effectively used in the field of cocoa processing and chocolate production.