Posh chocolate shops are springing up in the hip neighborhoods
where coffee culture long ago took root. All the talk is of aromas and
sustainability and it seems stingy not to fork out £7.50 ($10) for something
that disappears in a few mouthfuls.
Coffee has
paved the way for chocolate. Established chocolatiers are trying to do
for the stuff what Starbucks once did for coffee.
Last year Ferrero Rocher, an Italian brand, bought
Thorntons, a UK chocolate retailer with almost 250 stores. Lindt and Sprüngli,
owner of Switzerland’s best-known brand, aims to become the world’s biggest
retailer of premium chocolate in four years. It expects to add 65 stores this
year, after 50 new ones in 2015.
Euromonitor, a retail consultancy, says that worldwide
consumption of all chocolate has been stagnant during the past five years,
mostly because rich-world consumers are eating healthier snacks. But sales of
dark chocolate grew by 5.1% and 3.3% last year in America and Western Europe,
respectively.
Most cocoa is produced by smallholders who have not
increased supply in recent years as much as other commodity producers, helping
push up prices. Posh chocolatiers such as Britain’s Hotel Chocolat, with higher
margins, can absorb that better than big brands such as Mars.
Mondelez International, owner of Cadbury, has bid for
Hershey, another American firm. They are eying potential chocoholics in China
and India. But again, it is quality chocolate that will most appeal to elites
with purchasing power. As Euromonitor notes, it would take an Indian on average
a month’s wages to buy the chocolate a Brit eats in a year.
Edited from The Economist
