The first annual Vermont Chocolate Festival, presented by Adagio Chocolates, will take place Sat. March 15 at Town Hall Theater in downtown Middlebury. The weekend-long event will feature tastings, demonstrations and educational programming centered on ethically sourced chocolate.
Festivities begin Friday, March 14 at 6:30 p.m. with a chocolate tasting followed by a screening of “Peace by Chocolate” (2021), a film that follows a young Syrian refugee rebuilding his life in a small Canadian town after his family’s chocolate factory is destroyed in a bombing.
Saturday’s main event will include chocolate-themed games, s’more-making in the Maloney Plaza and raffles featuring premium chocolate prizes. Attendees will have opportunities to meet chocolate makers, learn about sourcing and flavor profiles and sample products from vendors across Vermont and neighboring states.
Adagio Chocolates, a boutique shop that opened in 2024, specializes in ethically sourced chocolate and Vermont-made sweets. Owner and co-founder Allan Sirotkin said the festival reflects the store’s broader mission.
“A lot of our mission is to be educational and transparent about chocolate [and] to let you know where the chocolate comes from and how the chocolate is made. This festival is to celebrate chocolate, which is incredible,” Sirotkin said in an interview with The Campus.
Sirotkin, who has been in the chocolate industry for several decades, founded Adagio Chocolates with Hanna Loeffler, a Managing Partner and the festival's primary event planner. Since the business’s opening in 2024, Adagio Chocolates has aimed to serve the Middlebury community with delicious, ethically sourced chocolate from around the world.
“I went to several different chocolate festivals to kind of get a sense of what they look like. I'd been to them before, but [I was] really kind of keeping an eye out for what's working and what's not working so well, ” Loeffler said.
Loeffler, who has been preparing for this festival since January, emphasized the effort and planning that went into the event. According to Loeffler, building and maintaining connections was central to bringing the festival together.
“It's an awful lot of connections. It's reaching out to connections. It's building on connections that you already have, reaching out to the people that you already know, and be like, ‘Hey, can you get me an intro to this person?’” Loeffler said.
Beyond tastings, Loeffler hopes the festival encourages attendees to think critically about the global chocolate industry.
“I would love it if people tried something new and felt stretched by it,” she said. “And this is not just chocolate specific, but just, is there something that we as humans could be doing better for other humans, for the environment, that will maybe, in tiny baby ways, make the world a little bit better?”
Admission for the Vermont Chocolate Festival is free for children 12 and under, with a Family Pass of 10% off when purchasing 4 or more tickets. Admissions packages range: there's a $20 Student Admission and a $30 General Admission, providing access to all demos and presentations, and 1 chocolate tasting, a $50 Generous General Admission, providing access to the same events, or a $100 VIP package, providing access to the same events and includes all chocolate tastings and an exclusive VIP Maker’s Breakfast and a VIP Special Tasting, both of which will occur on March 16.
Middlebury student Jackson McKersie ‘26 shared his excitement for the festival.
“Middlebury is amazing, but the winters can become isolating and drawn out. It’s nice that we have community events like this to bring energy and connection to a time of year that can feel pretty empty,” McKersie said.
In addition, there are several add-on options for ticket holders: a $10 tasting add-on that includes an additional chocolate tasting, and a $20 special tasting add-on that grants admission to the Sunday morning Special Tasting.
Editor’s note: Staff Writer Anna Doucet ’26 contributed reporting to this article.
