SARA JAYNE STANES OBE (Chairman of the AoC) is Director of the Academy of Culinary Arts; food writer, author of award winning ‘Chocolate: the Definitive Guide’ and Chocolate Evangelist.

As a food writer and chocolate truffle maker, Sara’s love affair with fine chocolate has endured for the past 20 years, evangelising about it whenever she can and to whomever will listen! She is passionate about provenance of ingredients, origins, varieties, breeds, organics, etc and particularly CHOCOLATE. She has written ‘Chocolate: the Definitive Guide’, with a foreword by Michel Roux OBE. It is the story of three and a half thousand years of cocoa to chocolate, from pod to palate: its history, geography, social and religious applications, its nutritional values, tastings, wines pairings, 'dos and don'ts and recipes. Sara regularly broadcasts and write about chocolate and gives lectures, seminars and tastings.

The Academy is Culinary Arts is Britain's leading association of head chefs, pastry chefs and restaurant managers whose principal aims include raising the standards of food, cooking and service through education and training and providing career opportunities for young people.. The Academy runs awards schemes, specialised apprenticeships and Adopt a School (of which Sara is a Trustee) which is the Academy’s charity and a schools project that teaches children about food, where it comes from and cooking through tasting sessions.

Sara lives in Clapham with her chocolate loving, wine merchant husband, Richard and their Battersea dog Cocoa.