| June 2007 News |
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June 29, 2007 - Elena Ruiu, a Euromonitor analyst, has issued a report about Cadbury's future. Cadbury has been
divesting itself of certain assets, soft drinks in the USA for example while adding other companies to their portfolio.
They have been trying to take advantage of niche markets and the increase in chocolate consumption in Asia while
simultaneously dealing with the damage to their reputation over the salmonella situation in the United Kingdom
and the desire to fight obesity in some markets. Although there are many disadvantages to having chocolate
companies consolidate there certainly are advantages. A check of Scarffenberger's website has shown how
Hershey has combine Scharffen Berger with Joseph Schmidt rather nicely. They plan on having Dagoba join the
site sometime in August. Three excellent companies brought together under one roof by Hershey. Swiss,
chocolate manufacturer, Barry Callebaut is reporting a healthy increase in sales over the last nine months. Even
with Brachs, a Calleabaut susidiary, doing poorly, recent agreements with both Hershey and Nestle have allowed
the company to boost sales over the last three quarters. Private label brands, store brands, are growing in
popularity in Europe. Neilsen studied the matter for the Private Label Market Association and found that in 15 of 18
European countries studied Private Labels were growing. The largest growth was taking place in Eastern Europe.
June 28, 2007 - DeBrand Chocolates is offering jars of chocolate fondue. No more melting your own chocolate for
dipping now you can just heat and eat. Indonesia, the worlds third largest cocoa producer, has been plagued this
year with adverse weather. Still as world demand increases Indonesia feels they can meet the marketplace's
demand and can increase production over the next few years. Coca-Cola has been expanding its partnership with
Campbell Soup lately. Campbell and Coke hope to launch a beverage based on Godiva chocolate which is a
Campbell company. The New York Times takes a look at the FDA's possible changing of the definition of what can
be sold as chocolate. They examine the controversy and take note of Gary Guittard's battle to maintain the status
quo. Jack In The Box is introducing a new product Chocolate Overload Cake. In the early 1980s, Frank Crail started
his own chocolate business in the Furango, Colorado area. Today that company, Rocky Mountain Chocolate
Factory, has grown to 325 stores in 44 states. The story of the companies phenomenal growth is an interesting
story.
June 26, 2007 - The InterContinental Berchtesgaden in the German Bavarian Alps has opened up a Chocolate
Spa Suite. The Suites offer body peels with chocolate and other chocolate spa related therapies. David Bradley
Chocolatier in New Jersey is dipping the state's fruit, blueberries, in chocolate in celebration of blueberry season.
You can read the Press Release here. Last November, Whisk, a chocolate cafe opened for business in Shanghai,
China. They are doing well and offer a variety of non chocolate items on their menu as well as chocolate. The
Armstrong Hotel in Ft. Collins, Colorado is the home of a new chocolate shop, The Chocolate Café. They opened
last week and all of their chocolate desserts are made on premises. Santa Ana, California is the home of a Rocky
Mountain Chocolate Factory store on Main Street. Outside sits Truffles the bear. Since 1992 a succession of bears
have sat outside the store. Each 4.5 feet and weighing 10 pounds. Every six to nine months the bear is replaced
and Truffles is quite popular among the local kids.
June 24, 2007 - In Naples, Florida Laurie Rose, of Olde Naples Chocolate held a seminar, “How to Taste
Chocolate,” at the local library. She instructed the crowd in how to identify different characteristics of chocolate and
how to enhance their enjoyment of chocolate. Michelle Ryan has gotten into trouble for sneaking chocolate onto the
set of the Bionic Woman. She says she doesn't worry about her weight or clothes size. In Mumbai, India police have
made an arrest and hopefully broken up a ring that was making money by buying discarded chocolate that had
passed its expiration date and then erasing the date and redating the chocolate somewhere in the future allowing it
to be sold again in stores but of course providing a health and freshness problem. Unfortuantely even though
Canadian Police have made two arrests in the missing salmonella tainted Hershey chocolate case some of the
product has shown up for sale in a store, Kawartha Lakes Food Mart in Kawartha, Canada. A customer noticed the
bars and notified health inspectors who quickly seized the rest of the product. Hopefully no more of the bars will
appear for sale. The closing of the Oakdale, California Hershey plant has led to an internal battle in the Teamsters
local that represented workers in the industry. Losing 500 dues paying members forced Teamsters Local 386 to
cut staff which has caused hard feelings among some of the local's members. Dirol Cadbury plans on moving up
in the Russian chocolate market from its current position at #7 in market share to one of the three largest
companies in the market in the next five years according to their marketing director for Eastern Europe Jesus
Ramos. They plan on acquiring some firms and merging with others. It looks like that in Norway there may be a
repeal of a tax on chocolate that was first started in 1922. Ending the tax may lower the price of some chocolate
products up to 30%. The taxes structure is a bit convoluted, chocolate inside a product is not taxed the same as
chocolate covering a product. It looks like The United Confectioners Holding Company may be acquiring Russian
Chocolate (Russky Shokolad). United Confectioners makes such products as Babayevsky, Rot Front and Krasny
Oktyabr and has 17,000 employees. Russian Chocolate has a plant in Moscow. The Nichol's family of Gloucester,
Massachusetts has been operating Nichol's Candies for 75 years. The company has set up a scrapbook where
customers can write about what the families products have meant to them over the years.
June 23, 2007 - M&Ms is once again attempting to raise money for the fight against breast cancer. You can order
pink and white M&Ms online and a portion of what you spend, 10%, will go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
Mars is guaranteeing they will contribute at least $550,000 to the Foundation. The weather in Tehran has been so
hot that it threatens to melt a chocolate statue of an Achaemenid soldier. The statue is being built by a team of 25
sculptors and will weigh somewhere between 300 and 400 kg. The statue has been commissioned by Iran
Cultural Heritage And Handicrafts and Tourism Organization. It will be displayed July 14th at the World Handicrafts
Day exhibit. The San Francisco Chocolate Salon, July 14 & 15 at Fort Mason has quite a line up of chocolate
companies lined up. Among others there are NEWTREE Gourmet Belgian Chocolate, Lillie Belle Farms Artisan
Chocolates, Theo Chocolate, San Francisco Chocolate Factory, XOX Truffles, Grand Avenue Chocolates and
MarieBelle Fine Treats and Chocolates. You can read the Salon's Press Release here. Speaking of San Francisco
- The San Francisco Chocolate Factory has released a chocolate syrup and an instant chocolate drink mix. They
also have the rights to use the saying "Got Milk" from The California Milk Processor Board. In England Sophi
Tranchell of Divine Chocolate has won a Real Business/CBI First Women Award for her achievements as a
woman in business. Her company has been in the forefront of the Fairtrade movement.
June 20, 2007 - Cadbury Schweppes has been hard at work expanding their portfolio of companies. They've
announced their purchase of Sansei Foods. Sansei manufactures gum in Japan and will help Cadbury increase
their market share in the country. Dutch candy producer Leaf International has begun production at their new plant
in Levice, Slovakia. The plant will supply candy to markets all over Western Europe as well as provide a foothold in
the growing Eastern Europe market. The Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) has announced they are
opening a new processing plant in Kumasi, Ghana. The plant will allow the company the opportunity to offer their
customers cocoa products from a single source. Cadbury has announced they will be restructuring their activities
in Great Britain and Ireland and has dismissed several senior executives in the process.
June 19, 2007 - Salon.com has an informative article about the Grenada Chocolate Company. The company has a
small factory on the West Indies island. The beans are grown organically and processed in small batches which
makes the chocolate a bit difficult to find outside of Grenada. In 2006, they received a World Chocolate Award from
London's Academy of Chocolate and we have sampled their wares in the past and can testify to the smoothness of
the resulting product. Cadbury Schweppes is hard at work on perfecting a low sugar or sugar free milk chocolate.
They are also hoping the product will be low fat. Although low sugar chocolate represents less than 1% of the
chocolate market in Europe its sales have grown by 52% over the last five years. In Malaysia K.C. Ch’ng, quit his job
in 2003 as a regional sales manager for a construction firm and turned to making chocolate. His company
Chocolate Chapter makes chocolates for special occasions. Some of his creations look stunning and it is worth
taking a look at his dragon. Diva Chocolates has introduced two new products into the marketplace. Kickin' Cocoa
Bean Beef Jerkey and Mocha Java Beef Jerky are a combination of chocolate and beef jerky. The International
Finance Corporation (IFC), of the IMF is providing $360,000 to Mozambican chocolate production company, "Deja
Vu Chocolat e Cafes". It is hoped that this will allow the company to increase its current production from 13 to 44
tonnes a year. The company based in Mozambique will increase its work force from 22 to 25. On June 15th we
reported that a shipment of chocolate which Hershey Canada had sent to be destroyed at a recycling center
because it was possibly infected with salmonella has been stolen. Fortunately police have made two arrests and
recovered the missing chocolate before it had reached the public.
June 16, 2007 - The British based advocacy group Global Witness has been pressuring chocolate companies to
stop doing business with the Ivory Coast to help slow the spread of violence in the country.
June 15, 2007 - Barry Callebaut has announced the opening of its new North American office in Chicago, Illinois.
The office will be staffed by a senior management team and Callebaut hopes to become the major supplier of
industrial chocolate in the Western Hemisphere. The company hopes to grow at twice the rate of growth in the
chocolate market which seems a tall order. Callebaut already operates five production facilities in North America
and has a new plant coming on line in Mexico next year. Between January and March of last year Cadbury did not
follow EU hygiene rules and released salmonella tainted chocolate onto the market in England. Thirty seven people
fell sick. You can check our news archives for that period for the ongoing story. Cadbury pleaded guilty this week to
three charges and awaits what the court imposed sanctions will be. The sanctions will come down on July 20th.
Hershey has a tough situation in Canada. Eight skids of product that is potentially infected with salmonella was
stolen from a recycling center. The chocolate was put together as part of a recall and had been shipped off to be
destroyed but was stolen in the process. Health authorities and Hershey are both concerned that the stolen
chocolate may end up on store shelves if purchased by unscrupulous or unknowing retailers. We here at
eChocolateNYC figure to live to be 100 with the ever accumulating evidence of the health benefits of cocoa. A just
released study from Japan has found the polyphenolic substances in coca may lead to a lowering of LDL the bad
cholesterol and an elevation of HDL the "good" cholesterol.
June 13, 2007 - Cadbury Schweppes has bought a 93.32% stake in Romania’s number two chocolate maker
Kandia-Excelent. Kandia-Excelent has a 20% share of the Romanian market. Moonstruck Chocolate opened its
first chocolate café in Portland in 1996 and has been expanding slowly ever since. The company has signed
leases for 8 more of their chocolate cafes which will expand the line to 17 locations. Tristar Food Wholesale of
Jersey City, New Jersey is recalling boxes of Ferrari Chocolate. The boxes contain undeclared peanuts which is a
danger for those allergic to peanuts and Aflatoxins which are by products of certain fungi and can be carcinogens in
elevated levels. Cadbury keeps expanding. They've purchased the Turkish gum business Intergum for
$450,000,000. File this one under only in New York. Five Boroughs Ice Cream is releasing five flavors one for each
borough. The Bronx flavor is Cha Cha Chocolate, Manhattan is Rich White Vanilla etc. Staten Island's flavor is
Landfill a jab at the borough's Fresh Kill's landfill. Local politicians are furious and the Borough President is calling
for a boycott until the company changes the name. He has suggested Ferry Berry a play on the Island's famed ferry.
The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Atlanta will be holding a chocolate fund raiser. Tickets are $65 and the event will
be held the evening of June 21st. There will be twenty local pastry chefs each of whom will be bringing their A
Game. Many people don't realize this but chefs can be a competitive group and you know each will be looking to
make an impression. A few weeks back Masterfoods backed off of a scheme to add animal rennet to their candy
bars, Mars, 3 Musketeers etc., in England. They backed off after a public outcry and now are trying to get accredited
by The Vegetarian Society which will allow them to put a green V on their candy bars. The Vegetarian Society is
studying the issue but has not accredited any chocolate in the past as they are trying to encourage "healthy eating".
June 12, 2007 - The Associated Press has a nice piece on regional variations in Ice Cream. Whether it's red bean,
popular in Hawaii and by the way available here in NYC at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, or Grape - Nuts
popular in New England, throughout the United States different areas of the country have developed their own local
Ice Cream traditions. Food Fete, a company that puts together press events, will be holding a chocolate event in
San Francisco, California October 30, 2007. You can read the Press Release here. What to do with the former
Elizabeth Shaw chocolate factory in Bristol, England has been a question puzzling local residents since the over a
100 year old factory closed its doors in September 2006. Some developers would like to tear the factory down and
develop the land whereas others would like to maintain the building and convert it to housing. In a case of wow we
can't believe it apparently Willy Wonka star Gene Wilder doesn't like chocolate. He liked it as a child but over the
years lost the taste for it. A Cadbury commissioned survey of British women has found that 52% of women would
prefer a chocolate bar to sex. 87% of men prefer sex to chocolate. Cadbury, quoted one women as saying
"chocolate provides guaranteed pleasure". Asheville, North Carolina was the home to its third annual Chocolate
Festival. More than a dozen local vendors served hundreds of visitors and the day raised money for Project Access,
a Buncombe County Medical Society Foundation. In 2003 Alex Marangoni, a food chemistry professor at the
University of Guelph, Canada developed CoaVel. CoaVel is a shortening replacement that is transfat free and with
all of the negative attention transfat has been getting lately CoaVel is looking more promising as a baking
ingredient.
June 11, 2007 - This looks like an interesting recipe for Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa's Chocolate
Crusted Key Lime Pie. Warren, Michigan is the home of The Chocolate Gallery Café. On the breakfast menu is The
Chocolate Buckingham Torte which has to be seen to be believed as a breakfast food. In a factory in Pokrov,
Russia once owned by Stollwerck, Kraft Foods is adding a new manufacturing line, a $12,000,000 investment. Kraft
took over the factory in 2002 and has used it to produce the Alpen Gold, Milka and Vozdushny (Airy) chocolate bars
and Barkhat (Velvet) and Chudny Vecher (Wonderful Evening) chocolates among other products.
June 10, 2007 - In California a panel of experts convened to taste an assortment of store available semi sweet
chocolate chips. Working their way through 14 different chips they sampled them raw and then baked into cookies
using the classic Tollhouse recipe. Their conclusion at #1 the Guittard Real Semisweet. Second place went to
Nestle Chocolatier Dark chips. Third was a tie between Trader Joe's house brand and Ghirardelli's chips.
June 7, 2007 - Flavanols found in cocoa and blueberries have been found to help the memories of mice. The
research was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. NorthJersey.com has a neat item about Craig Growney
and the career he is trying to carve in the world of baking. The article also has a recipe for making and assembling
a chocolate Napoleon. Bozeman, Montana is becoming the home for "high end" chocolate. La Chatelaine Chocolat
Co.'s shop is owned by partners Jean-Pierre Wlady Grochowski and Shannon Hughes Spratt. They are somewhat
nervous that people might balk at the higher prices necessary that they can stick to using quality materials. Vista
the Northern California town held it's Vista Village Chocolate Festival last Sunday. A crowd of approximately 10,000
flocked to the town and enjoyed a day of chocolate eating. Northern Michigan is the home of Grocer's Daughter
Chocolate. The shops owner Mimi Wheeler made her first truffle in Denmark as a child in 1960, She opened her
shop in 2004 and uses Rainforest Alliance-certified chocolate from Ecuador along with many local ingredients
including fruits and herbs from her own garden.
June 6, 2007 - Cadbury has sold off a handful of companies they own in three different countries raising almost
$400,000,000. Some of the companies that were sold were Cadbury's Australian jams and jellies business,
Cadbury Italia their Italian outpost and Allan Candy one of the companies they own in Canada. John & Kira's has
what looks like a super item available for Father's Day. They are chocolate covered figs. We here at eChocolateNYC
have sampled some chocolate covered figs in the past and the were pretty good and these look like they blow them
away. The ones we sampled were coated with milk chocolate and the figs were a bit on the dry side. Still the
combination was awesome and these from John & Kiras appear much better. These figs are stuffed with 64%
Valrhona ganache and coated with a layer of dark 54% chocolate. Like we said they look great. DeBrand has a few
nice Father's Day items for sale. They always make a nice piece of chocolate and this year they are offering a tower
with an assortment of chocolates for $42.50 wrapped in a nice masculine deep brown with a nice ribbon. If you
want to pick up some interesting items for Father's Day take a look at England's Hotel Chocolat. Nice high quality
chocolate and highly recommended by the staff at eChocolateNYC. If you've enjoyed the new M&Ms TV commercial
with the Addams Family you can watch it again at mms.com.
June 3, 2007 - Julie Pech the author of "The Chocolate Therapist: A User's Guide to the Extraordinary Health
Benefits of Chocolate" ate chocolate every day for 18 straight months doing research. She also teaches a course at
Colorado Free University as well as running her own chocolate web site www.thechocolatetherapist.com.
June 1, 2007 - For those of us here in New York who have been able to sample the chocolate bread at Balthazar
we've always known we were eating something a little special. Scharffen Berger has put on their website the recipe
for the bread. No one has ever accused Katrina of Vosges Haut Chocolat of playing it safe or lacking imagination.
This week Vosges is releasing Mo's Bacon Bar. The bar is a combination of Applewood smoked bacon + Alder
smoked salt + deep milk chocolate. A 3 oz. bar runs $7 which seems fair for something this complex, especially
since you know Vosges will do it right. Bioversity International has begun a project funded in part by the Austrian
Development Agency. They hope to help increase cocoa yield and quality in parts of Nicaragua. The project hopes
to bring together local farmers with scientists and chocolate company representatives in an effort to create organic,
high quality cocoa that can then be marketed. Ukranian sweets manufacturer Roshen produced more than 80,000
tons of sweets in the first quarter. Not only does the company have 30% of Ukraine's market but they also exported
$41,000,000 worth of product. Some of the companies brands are
divesting itself of certain assets, soft drinks in the USA for example while adding other companies to their portfolio.
They have been trying to take advantage of niche markets and the increase in chocolate consumption in Asia while
simultaneously dealing with the damage to their reputation over the salmonella situation in the United Kingdom
and the desire to fight obesity in some markets. Although there are many disadvantages to having chocolate
companies consolidate there certainly are advantages. A check of Scarffenberger's website has shown how
Hershey has combine Scharffen Berger with Joseph Schmidt rather nicely. They plan on having Dagoba join the
site sometime in August. Three excellent companies brought together under one roof by Hershey. Swiss,
chocolate manufacturer, Barry Callebaut is reporting a healthy increase in sales over the last nine months. Even
with Brachs, a Calleabaut susidiary, doing poorly, recent agreements with both Hershey and Nestle have allowed
the company to boost sales over the last three quarters. Private label brands, store brands, are growing in
popularity in Europe. Neilsen studied the matter for the Private Label Market Association and found that in 15 of 18
European countries studied Private Labels were growing. The largest growth was taking place in Eastern Europe.
June 28, 2007 - DeBrand Chocolates is offering jars of chocolate fondue. No more melting your own chocolate for
dipping now you can just heat and eat. Indonesia, the worlds third largest cocoa producer, has been plagued this
year with adverse weather. Still as world demand increases Indonesia feels they can meet the marketplace's
demand and can increase production over the next few years. Coca-Cola has been expanding its partnership with
Campbell Soup lately. Campbell and Coke hope to launch a beverage based on Godiva chocolate which is a
Campbell company. The New York Times takes a look at the FDA's possible changing of the definition of what can
be sold as chocolate. They examine the controversy and take note of Gary Guittard's battle to maintain the status
quo. Jack In The Box is introducing a new product Chocolate Overload Cake. In the early 1980s, Frank Crail started
his own chocolate business in the Furango, Colorado area. Today that company, Rocky Mountain Chocolate
Factory, has grown to 325 stores in 44 states. The story of the companies phenomenal growth is an interesting
story.
June 26, 2007 - The InterContinental Berchtesgaden in the German Bavarian Alps has opened up a Chocolate
Spa Suite. The Suites offer body peels with chocolate and other chocolate spa related therapies. David Bradley
Chocolatier in New Jersey is dipping the state's fruit, blueberries, in chocolate in celebration of blueberry season.
You can read the Press Release here. Last November, Whisk, a chocolate cafe opened for business in Shanghai,
China. They are doing well and offer a variety of non chocolate items on their menu as well as chocolate. The
Armstrong Hotel in Ft. Collins, Colorado is the home of a new chocolate shop, The Chocolate Café. They opened
last week and all of their chocolate desserts are made on premises. Santa Ana, California is the home of a Rocky
Mountain Chocolate Factory store on Main Street. Outside sits Truffles the bear. Since 1992 a succession of bears
have sat outside the store. Each 4.5 feet and weighing 10 pounds. Every six to nine months the bear is replaced
and Truffles is quite popular among the local kids.
June 24, 2007 - In Naples, Florida Laurie Rose, of Olde Naples Chocolate held a seminar, “How to Taste
Chocolate,” at the local library. She instructed the crowd in how to identify different characteristics of chocolate and
how to enhance their enjoyment of chocolate. Michelle Ryan has gotten into trouble for sneaking chocolate onto the
set of the Bionic Woman. She says she doesn't worry about her weight or clothes size. In Mumbai, India police have
made an arrest and hopefully broken up a ring that was making money by buying discarded chocolate that had
passed its expiration date and then erasing the date and redating the chocolate somewhere in the future allowing it
to be sold again in stores but of course providing a health and freshness problem. Unfortuantely even though
Canadian Police have made two arrests in the missing salmonella tainted Hershey chocolate case some of the
product has shown up for sale in a store, Kawartha Lakes Food Mart in Kawartha, Canada. A customer noticed the
bars and notified health inspectors who quickly seized the rest of the product. Hopefully no more of the bars will
appear for sale. The closing of the Oakdale, California Hershey plant has led to an internal battle in the Teamsters
local that represented workers in the industry. Losing 500 dues paying members forced Teamsters Local 386 to
cut staff which has caused hard feelings among some of the local's members. Dirol Cadbury plans on moving up
in the Russian chocolate market from its current position at #7 in market share to one of the three largest
companies in the market in the next five years according to their marketing director for Eastern Europe Jesus
Ramos. They plan on acquiring some firms and merging with others. It looks like that in Norway there may be a
repeal of a tax on chocolate that was first started in 1922. Ending the tax may lower the price of some chocolate
products up to 30%. The taxes structure is a bit convoluted, chocolate inside a product is not taxed the same as
chocolate covering a product. It looks like The United Confectioners Holding Company may be acquiring Russian
Chocolate (Russky Shokolad). United Confectioners makes such products as Babayevsky, Rot Front and Krasny
Oktyabr and has 17,000 employees. Russian Chocolate has a plant in Moscow. The Nichol's family of Gloucester,
Massachusetts has been operating Nichol's Candies for 75 years. The company has set up a scrapbook where
customers can write about what the families products have meant to them over the years.
June 23, 2007 - M&Ms is once again attempting to raise money for the fight against breast cancer. You can order
pink and white M&Ms online and a portion of what you spend, 10%, will go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
Mars is guaranteeing they will contribute at least $550,000 to the Foundation. The weather in Tehran has been so
hot that it threatens to melt a chocolate statue of an Achaemenid soldier. The statue is being built by a team of 25
sculptors and will weigh somewhere between 300 and 400 kg. The statue has been commissioned by Iran
Cultural Heritage And Handicrafts and Tourism Organization. It will be displayed July 14th at the World Handicrafts
Day exhibit. The San Francisco Chocolate Salon, July 14 & 15 at Fort Mason has quite a line up of chocolate
companies lined up. Among others there are NEWTREE Gourmet Belgian Chocolate, Lillie Belle Farms Artisan
Chocolates, Theo Chocolate, San Francisco Chocolate Factory, XOX Truffles, Grand Avenue Chocolates and
MarieBelle Fine Treats and Chocolates. You can read the Salon's Press Release here. Speaking of San Francisco
- The San Francisco Chocolate Factory has released a chocolate syrup and an instant chocolate drink mix. They
also have the rights to use the saying "Got Milk" from The California Milk Processor Board. In England Sophi
Tranchell of Divine Chocolate has won a Real Business/CBI First Women Award for her achievements as a
woman in business. Her company has been in the forefront of the Fairtrade movement.
June 20, 2007 - Cadbury Schweppes has been hard at work expanding their portfolio of companies. They've
announced their purchase of Sansei Foods. Sansei manufactures gum in Japan and will help Cadbury increase
their market share in the country. Dutch candy producer Leaf International has begun production at their new plant
in Levice, Slovakia. The plant will supply candy to markets all over Western Europe as well as provide a foothold in
the growing Eastern Europe market. The Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) has announced they are
opening a new processing plant in Kumasi, Ghana. The plant will allow the company the opportunity to offer their
customers cocoa products from a single source. Cadbury has announced they will be restructuring their activities
in Great Britain and Ireland and has dismissed several senior executives in the process.
June 19, 2007 - Salon.com has an informative article about the Grenada Chocolate Company. The company has a
small factory on the West Indies island. The beans are grown organically and processed in small batches which
makes the chocolate a bit difficult to find outside of Grenada. In 2006, they received a World Chocolate Award from
London's Academy of Chocolate and we have sampled their wares in the past and can testify to the smoothness of
the resulting product. Cadbury Schweppes is hard at work on perfecting a low sugar or sugar free milk chocolate.
They are also hoping the product will be low fat. Although low sugar chocolate represents less than 1% of the
chocolate market in Europe its sales have grown by 52% over the last five years. In Malaysia K.C. Ch’ng, quit his job
in 2003 as a regional sales manager for a construction firm and turned to making chocolate. His company
Chocolate Chapter makes chocolates for special occasions. Some of his creations look stunning and it is worth
taking a look at his dragon. Diva Chocolates has introduced two new products into the marketplace. Kickin' Cocoa
Bean Beef Jerkey and Mocha Java Beef Jerky are a combination of chocolate and beef jerky. The International
Finance Corporation (IFC), of the IMF is providing $360,000 to Mozambican chocolate production company, "Deja
Vu Chocolat e Cafes". It is hoped that this will allow the company to increase its current production from 13 to 44
tonnes a year. The company based in Mozambique will increase its work force from 22 to 25. On June 15th we
reported that a shipment of chocolate which Hershey Canada had sent to be destroyed at a recycling center
because it was possibly infected with salmonella has been stolen. Fortunately police have made two arrests and
recovered the missing chocolate before it had reached the public.
June 16, 2007 - The British based advocacy group Global Witness has been pressuring chocolate companies to
stop doing business with the Ivory Coast to help slow the spread of violence in the country.
June 15, 2007 - Barry Callebaut has announced the opening of its new North American office in Chicago, Illinois.
The office will be staffed by a senior management team and Callebaut hopes to become the major supplier of
industrial chocolate in the Western Hemisphere. The company hopes to grow at twice the rate of growth in the
chocolate market which seems a tall order. Callebaut already operates five production facilities in North America
and has a new plant coming on line in Mexico next year. Between January and March of last year Cadbury did not
follow EU hygiene rules and released salmonella tainted chocolate onto the market in England. Thirty seven people
fell sick. You can check our news archives for that period for the ongoing story. Cadbury pleaded guilty this week to
three charges and awaits what the court imposed sanctions will be. The sanctions will come down on July 20th.
Hershey has a tough situation in Canada. Eight skids of product that is potentially infected with salmonella was
stolen from a recycling center. The chocolate was put together as part of a recall and had been shipped off to be
destroyed but was stolen in the process. Health authorities and Hershey are both concerned that the stolen
chocolate may end up on store shelves if purchased by unscrupulous or unknowing retailers. We here at
eChocolateNYC figure to live to be 100 with the ever accumulating evidence of the health benefits of cocoa. A just
released study from Japan has found the polyphenolic substances in coca may lead to a lowering of LDL the bad
cholesterol and an elevation of HDL the "good" cholesterol.
June 13, 2007 - Cadbury Schweppes has bought a 93.32% stake in Romania’s number two chocolate maker
Kandia-Excelent. Kandia-Excelent has a 20% share of the Romanian market. Moonstruck Chocolate opened its
first chocolate café in Portland in 1996 and has been expanding slowly ever since. The company has signed
leases for 8 more of their chocolate cafes which will expand the line to 17 locations. Tristar Food Wholesale of
Jersey City, New Jersey is recalling boxes of Ferrari Chocolate. The boxes contain undeclared peanuts which is a
danger for those allergic to peanuts and Aflatoxins which are by products of certain fungi and can be carcinogens in
elevated levels. Cadbury keeps expanding. They've purchased the Turkish gum business Intergum for
$450,000,000. File this one under only in New York. Five Boroughs Ice Cream is releasing five flavors one for each
borough. The Bronx flavor is Cha Cha Chocolate, Manhattan is Rich White Vanilla etc. Staten Island's flavor is
Landfill a jab at the borough's Fresh Kill's landfill. Local politicians are furious and the Borough President is calling
for a boycott until the company changes the name. He has suggested Ferry Berry a play on the Island's famed ferry.
The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Atlanta will be holding a chocolate fund raiser. Tickets are $65 and the event will
be held the evening of June 21st. There will be twenty local pastry chefs each of whom will be bringing their A
Game. Many people don't realize this but chefs can be a competitive group and you know each will be looking to
make an impression. A few weeks back Masterfoods backed off of a scheme to add animal rennet to their candy
bars, Mars, 3 Musketeers etc., in England. They backed off after a public outcry and now are trying to get accredited
by The Vegetarian Society which will allow them to put a green V on their candy bars. The Vegetarian Society is
studying the issue but has not accredited any chocolate in the past as they are trying to encourage "healthy eating".
June 12, 2007 - The Associated Press has a nice piece on regional variations in Ice Cream. Whether it's red bean,
popular in Hawaii and by the way available here in NYC at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, or Grape - Nuts
popular in New England, throughout the United States different areas of the country have developed their own local
Ice Cream traditions. Food Fete, a company that puts together press events, will be holding a chocolate event in
San Francisco, California October 30, 2007. You can read the Press Release here. What to do with the former
Elizabeth Shaw chocolate factory in Bristol, England has been a question puzzling local residents since the over a
100 year old factory closed its doors in September 2006. Some developers would like to tear the factory down and
develop the land whereas others would like to maintain the building and convert it to housing. In a case of wow we
can't believe it apparently Willy Wonka star Gene Wilder doesn't like chocolate. He liked it as a child but over the
years lost the taste for it. A Cadbury commissioned survey of British women has found that 52% of women would
prefer a chocolate bar to sex. 87% of men prefer sex to chocolate. Cadbury, quoted one women as saying
"chocolate provides guaranteed pleasure". Asheville, North Carolina was the home to its third annual Chocolate
Festival. More than a dozen local vendors served hundreds of visitors and the day raised money for Project Access,
a Buncombe County Medical Society Foundation. In 2003 Alex Marangoni, a food chemistry professor at the
University of Guelph, Canada developed CoaVel. CoaVel is a shortening replacement that is transfat free and with
all of the negative attention transfat has been getting lately CoaVel is looking more promising as a baking
ingredient.
June 11, 2007 - This looks like an interesting recipe for Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa's Chocolate
Crusted Key Lime Pie. Warren, Michigan is the home of The Chocolate Gallery Café. On the breakfast menu is The
Chocolate Buckingham Torte which has to be seen to be believed as a breakfast food. In a factory in Pokrov,
Russia once owned by Stollwerck, Kraft Foods is adding a new manufacturing line, a $12,000,000 investment. Kraft
took over the factory in 2002 and has used it to produce the Alpen Gold, Milka and Vozdushny (Airy) chocolate bars
and Barkhat (Velvet) and Chudny Vecher (Wonderful Evening) chocolates among other products.
June 10, 2007 - In California a panel of experts convened to taste an assortment of store available semi sweet
chocolate chips. Working their way through 14 different chips they sampled them raw and then baked into cookies
using the classic Tollhouse recipe. Their conclusion at #1 the Guittard Real Semisweet. Second place went to
Nestle Chocolatier Dark chips. Third was a tie between Trader Joe's house brand and Ghirardelli's chips.
June 7, 2007 - Flavanols found in cocoa and blueberries have been found to help the memories of mice. The
research was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. NorthJersey.com has a neat item about Craig Growney
and the career he is trying to carve in the world of baking. The article also has a recipe for making and assembling
a chocolate Napoleon. Bozeman, Montana is becoming the home for "high end" chocolate. La Chatelaine Chocolat
Co.'s shop is owned by partners Jean-Pierre Wlady Grochowski and Shannon Hughes Spratt. They are somewhat
nervous that people might balk at the higher prices necessary that they can stick to using quality materials. Vista
the Northern California town held it's Vista Village Chocolate Festival last Sunday. A crowd of approximately 10,000
flocked to the town and enjoyed a day of chocolate eating. Northern Michigan is the home of Grocer's Daughter
Chocolate. The shops owner Mimi Wheeler made her first truffle in Denmark as a child in 1960, She opened her
shop in 2004 and uses Rainforest Alliance-certified chocolate from Ecuador along with many local ingredients
including fruits and herbs from her own garden.
June 6, 2007 - Cadbury has sold off a handful of companies they own in three different countries raising almost
$400,000,000. Some of the companies that were sold were Cadbury's Australian jams and jellies business,
Cadbury Italia their Italian outpost and Allan Candy one of the companies they own in Canada. John & Kira's has
what looks like a super item available for Father's Day. They are chocolate covered figs. We here at eChocolateNYC
have sampled some chocolate covered figs in the past and the were pretty good and these look like they blow them
away. The ones we sampled were coated with milk chocolate and the figs were a bit on the dry side. Still the
combination was awesome and these from John & Kiras appear much better. These figs are stuffed with 64%
Valrhona ganache and coated with a layer of dark 54% chocolate. Like we said they look great. DeBrand has a few
nice Father's Day items for sale. They always make a nice piece of chocolate and this year they are offering a tower
with an assortment of chocolates for $42.50 wrapped in a nice masculine deep brown with a nice ribbon. If you
want to pick up some interesting items for Father's Day take a look at England's Hotel Chocolat. Nice high quality
chocolate and highly recommended by the staff at eChocolateNYC. If you've enjoyed the new M&Ms TV commercial
with the Addams Family you can watch it again at mms.com.
June 3, 2007 - Julie Pech the author of "The Chocolate Therapist: A User's Guide to the Extraordinary Health
Benefits of Chocolate" ate chocolate every day for 18 straight months doing research. She also teaches a course at
Colorado Free University as well as running her own chocolate web site www.thechocolatetherapist.com.
June 1, 2007 - For those of us here in New York who have been able to sample the chocolate bread at Balthazar
we've always known we were eating something a little special. Scharffen Berger has put on their website the recipe
for the bread. No one has ever accused Katrina of Vosges Haut Chocolat of playing it safe or lacking imagination.
This week Vosges is releasing Mo's Bacon Bar. The bar is a combination of Applewood smoked bacon + Alder
smoked salt + deep milk chocolate. A 3 oz. bar runs $7 which seems fair for something this complex, especially
since you know Vosges will do it right. Bioversity International has begun a project funded in part by the Austrian
Development Agency. They hope to help increase cocoa yield and quality in parts of Nicaragua. The project hopes
to bring together local farmers with scientists and chocolate company representatives in an effort to create organic,
high quality cocoa that can then be marketed. Ukranian sweets manufacturer Roshen produced more than 80,000
tons of sweets in the first quarter. Not only does the company have 30% of Ukraine's market but they also exported
$41,000,000 worth of product. Some of the companies brands are