About
The Good Food Awards rely on the expertise of the confections community to create the tasting, determine judges and set standards for the category. Read on to learn who has been integral to building the category, as well as what the confections standard are and who will be judging this year.
Committee
Co-ChairsHillary Lyons
Founder, Syntropy
Hillary Lyons is a former chef, food writer, and the founder of Syntropy, an agency that blends the best of human ingenuity & machine intelligence to create adaptive marketing systems for startups. She believes that mission-driven brands have the power to change the world — so long as they can bottle their vision and values into snackable stories their customers can rally around.
Jennifer Shawgo
Senior Director, Technology Strategy & Programs at FMI – The Food Industry Association AND Principal, VerdantPink
Jennifer Shawgo has spent more than 25 years working across food, grocery, technology, and the communities that connect them. She is Senior Director of Technology Strategy & Programs at FMI, The Food Industry Association, where she leads the industry relations technology practice, guiding the food industry through emerging technology and responsible digitization.
Raised in Sonoma County, California, Jennifer spent her early years raising livestock, studying viticulture, and working in fine dining. Those experiences shaped a career rooted in natural products, independent grocery, sustainable food systems, and a belief that food sits at the center of community.
Her work has included helping scale the organic and natural products industry through distribution, alongside roles in grocery technology startups, industry engagement, and food policy. She has led industry engagement with the Organic Trade Association and served on the California Organic Products Advisory Committee under the California Department of Food & Agriculture, contributing to policy and standards supporting organic integrity.
Jennifer is also Principal at VerdantPink, her independent practice bringing together her interests in technology, food, retail, and community through work in the U.S. and Mexico.
She holds a B.S. in Organizational Behavior and Leadership from the University of San Francisco and completed executive education in change leadership and executive leadership at Cornell University.
Evan Euphrat
Judges 2026
Stefano Marangon
Wholesale Director, Venchi Chocolate
Carol Diaz
Board Chair, Slow Food Sonoma County North
Nancy Martin
Owner, Chocolate By The Bay
Rebecca Kuehn
R&D Director, Guittard Chocolate Company
Leslie Goodrich
Julia Street
Owner, JTS Chocolate
Alex Molinaro
VP Merchandising, World Market
Mary Denham
Owner/Pastry Chef, Blooms End
Lee Theisen
Lecturer, UCLA
Malena Lopez-Maggi
Owner, The Xocolate Bar
Hetal Vasavada
Founder, Milk and Cardamom
Luis Villavelazquez
Pastry Chef | Culinary Instructor, Bellaria Dessert Studio | City College of SF
Standards
In order to be eligible for a Good Food Award, confections entries must meet the following standards:
- Made in the USA or US territories.
- Free of artificial ingredients, including colors, flavors and preservatives.
- Free of genetically modified ingredients.
- Free of high fructose corn syrup.
- Sugar must be Organic or Fair Trade certified or traceable to the farm level.*
- If made with chocolate, it must be premium couverture and may not be made with substitute fats as alternatives to cocoa butter. Additionally, this chocolate cannot be made with GM sugar, GM lecithin or alternatives to real vanilla (i.e. flavoring).
- If made with dairy and other animal-derived ingredients, these are locally sourced and/or certified organic; free range; hormone-free; and from animals raised using good animal husbandry.**
- If made with inclusions and flavorings that are grown domestically, they are locally sourced wherever possible; traceable; and grown without the use of synthetic herbicides, pesticides, fungicides or fertilizers.***
- If made with inclusions and flavorings that are not grown domestically on a commercial scale, they are farm-direct, certified organic or Fair Trade certified.**
- Made by a crafter that is an upstanding member of the Good Food community, committed to equity and inclusion in all levels of their business, as exemplified through integrating these practices:
- Creating a safe and healthy work environment where employees receive a fair wage, are safe and respected at work and have access to the resources they need to keep themselves healthy.
- Offering a diversity, equity, and inclusion training to staff members and/or leadership annually.
- Thoughtfully acknowledging the heritage of culturally-specific food on websites, packaging and/or marketing materials.
- If your company is Publicly-held, Owned/Partially-owned by publicly-held compan(y)ies, or has over $100 million in annual revenue, your company, as well as its parent company(ies), are required to meet additional criteria to become Good Food Qualified:
- Offer a minimum of 12 weeks of paid parental leave to all employees
- Have at least one woman, minority, or LGBTQIA+ representative on their Board of Directors
- Have a proven track record of prioritizing a safe and fairly-compensated work culture, with no violations in the area of wage or workplace safety in the past 5 years. This will be verified on the Good Jobs First Violation Tracker
Subcategories
Additionally, confections entries must fit within one of the following subcategories:
- Candy (Gummies, Taffy, Lollipops, Licorice)
- Marshmallows, Nougats, Torrones
- Caramels, wrapped
- Caramels, chocolate covered
- Brittles & Toffees
- Chocolates: Truffles, Creams, Bon-bons, Pralines
- Fruit: Pate De Fruit, Candied Fruit and Peel, Fruit Gelee
- Sweet Snacks: Dragees
- Candy Bars
- Flavored & Inclusion Bars*
- Sauces & Spreads
*Bean-to-bar makers must enter flavored or inclusion bars in the Chocolate category.
Couverture
Note that we encourage but do not require that Confections entrants use domestically produced craft chocolate that is made with beans from a traceable source, purchased at a price above Fair Trade standard pricing, with focus on sustainable farming.