Chocolate Meltdown 2026
Oxford's premier January event.
Chocolate Meltdown is upcoming Saturday, Jan. 10 from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Oxford Community Arts Center (OCAC), and Friday, Jan. 9 is the citywide Chocolate Crawl. The next print edition of the Oxford Free Press is on Friday, Jan. 9, so I wanted to share a reminder now about Oxford’s chocolate weekend.
Oxford’s premier January event, Chocolate Meltdown is a fundraiser for the OCAC and Miami’s Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum (RCCAM) at Miami University. Hundreds of chocoholics from around the Tristate sample a wide variety of chocolate-themed foods and beverages. The OCAC will also mount an exhibition of art inspired by chocolate from Jan. 10 through Feb. 7.
Here’s how Chocolate Meltdown works: When you enter the OCAC (no charge for admission), purchase tasting tickets priced at $1 each, 6 for $5, 12 for $10 and 24 for $20. Present a ticket to a vendor and receive a sample in return that the vendor judges worth $1. Vendors are also permitted to sell their chocolate-based creations directly to the public.
Dozens of Oxford businesses participate in Chocolate Crawl, including retailers, restaurants, and bars. Activities and times vary around town. For example, MOON Co-op offers free chocolate sampling on Jan. 9 from noon to 1 p.m.
Last year, 15 vendors filled the OCAC ballroom on a snowy day. Some of the chocolatiers have been making and baking for decades, whereas others are newcomers to the practice. The most spectacular display at Chocolate Meltdown is likely to be a threefoot-high, four-tiered fountain of cascading liquid chocolate provided by Lady Belgium Chocolate Fountain. For one ticket, you get to dip a strawberry, cookie or marshmallow into the fountain.
MOON Co-op is happy to help at a fundraiser for the OCAC and RCCAM. All three of us contribute to making Oxford a special place to live. But MOON Co-op – like other small businesses in Oxford – has to count every penny. This is especially important for MOON Co-op, because it is owned by more than 1,000 mostly Oxford-area households rather than by a national corporation.
Enter Equal Exchange, MOON’s source of chocolate for Chocolate Meltdown. Like MOON, Equal Exchange is cooperatively owned, in its case, by the 125 employees of the company.
Most Equal Exchange chocolate contains only three ingredients: cacao, sugar and vanilla. (Some bars contain a fourth ingredient, such as orange or almond.) The organic cacao beans are sourced from small-scale farmers organized into cooperatives, mostly in Peru. The organic raw cane sugar comes from Manduvira co-op, the first farmer-owned sugar mill in Paraguay. The organic vanilla beans come from a co-op in Madagascar.
Co-ops agree to adhere to seven principles, one of which is that cooperatives help each other. As a well-established co-op, Equal Exchange is helping MOON Co-op, and by extension the Oxford community, by providing the chocolate for MOON to have at Chocolate Meltdown at a low cost.
The chocolate from Equal Exchange is about as intensely “chocolaty” as you will find at Chocolate Meltdown. The percentage of cacao ranges from a low of 55% to a high of 92%. In comparison, a Hershey’s bar contains only around 11% cacao, not to mention unspecified chemical additives.
Please stop by and say hi to us at Chocolate Meltdown. MOON Co-op’s helpers at Chocolate Meltdown, who include 14-year-old Miles Dumyahn and Mitzi Ganelin (age withheld), are testimony that the event appeals to chocoholics of all ages. And take our chocoholics’ ultimate challenge by sampling Equal Exchange’s 92% cacao.
James Rubenstein is president of the Board of Directors for the Oxford Free Press and professor emeritus of geography at Miami University.
