The Chocolate News--August 2006

Headline Chocolate News

The Week of August 16, 2006

When people in the U.K. make healthy food choices, they reward themselves with chocolate!

According to a recent survey, vegetable and fruit sales have been rising while potato chip sales have been falling. However, chocolate sales are soaring. Experts are attributing this to something they are calling "credit-debit behavior." Basically, someone with this mindset believes that if you have "credits" from eating healthy food, you get to spend some of them on your favorite indulgences.

This approach makes sense to me as long as the debits are significantly less than the credits--you can't eat five chocolate bars because you ate five servings of veggies. It's like saving your money for a while, and then spending a bit of what you've saved on something that is really important to you. The importance of the item is the key. If you know that chocolate is your absolute favorite indulgence, that should be what you eat when you need a bit of a pick-me-up. If you eat some other type of junk food that you don't really crave, you probably won't feel satisfied, and will still eat the chocolate anyway.

The Week of August 9, 2006

Mars helps in the fight against the cocoa pod borer moth.

A recent outbreak of the moths is causing concern about the impact of the pest on Asian cocoa production. Although Mars will not disclose how much of their cocoa comes from affected countries, it is clear that the destruction of cacao pods is disasterous for chocolate companies worldwide.

Cacao pests are troubling for many reasons. One is that they ruin the crops, and the farmers who rely on those crops for their livelihood lose money. Another is that the reduction in viable cacao pods drives up the price of chocolate, which again impacts the farmers as well as chocolate manufacturers and retailers. Finally, when pests ravage the crops, pesticide sprays soon follow. Chocolate is a heavily sprayed crop already, and although agencies like the FDA assure us that the chemicals used are not harmful to human health, I'm not particularly inclined to believe them--they used to think that DDT, DEET, and Teflon were safe too.

Food packaging on candy and ice-cream bars could be dangerous to those with latex allergies.

The Food Standards Agency in the U.K. found that one-third of food packages studied were contaminated with significant amounts of latex.

See--another reason not to trust the agencies that are supposed to be protecting us from harmful chemicals, improper food additives, and other such things. I wonder how long this has been occurring without anybody noticing. Shouldn't the FDA and the FSA have made sure that particular types of food packages were safe before companies could begin using them?

The Week of August 2, 2006

New study by Mars finds numerous circulatory benefits linked to cocoa consumption

The article states that the benefits of cocoa are widespread, and include: increased blood flow to the brain, improved blood-vessel function, and possibly a reduction in blood clots.

The question is, do we believe that the scientists who work with Mars are really being objective? We all want to believe that the foods we love to eat are good for us, but doctors frequently remind us that the fat and sugar present in many chocolate products come with their own detriments.

Cadbury sales plummet after salmonella cover-up

Many supermarket owners are seeing a decrease in the number of Cadbury bars sold, while other chocolate brands are selling more briskly than usual. Cadbury will be releasing an official report on their earnings in the near future, but in the interim, some are guessing that sales have fallen by about 25% since the scandal broke.

And I'm happy about it...consumers need to use their dollars in an effort to let manufacturers know that they ought to act ethically. If this type of consumer reaction happened more often, businesses would change much more quickly. Imagine if the sales of clothing made in sweatshops fell by 25%, or if a company that served chicken sandwiches made from battery caged chicken lost a quarter of their business...so get out there and don't spend your money for a good cause today!

In Other News...

The Week of August 16th, 2006

• Chocolate-covered ants big business at fancy stores like Harrods.
  The Hamilton Spectator


• New "Right Direction" cookies fight cholesterol instead of adding to it.
  The Market Wire


• The Jamaican government promises cacao farmers a 100% price increase.
  The Jamaica Gleaner


• Do-it-yourself check-out lines decrease impulse purchases.
  The Telegraph


• Want to propose with M&Ms? Now you can! Customizable M&Ms are available for personal use or for businesses.
  The Food Navigator USA


• Critic disappointed by new Ben & Jerry's shakes.
  The Chicago Sun-Times

The Week of August 9, 2006

• Displaced Ivorian cacao farmers fear violence if they return to their farms to harvest cacao.
  


• Russian woman finds diamond ring in candy bar, returns it to owner.
  Mosnews


• Flavanol-rich cocoa great for Baby Boomers.
  The Food Production Daily


• Un-Fair Trade? Fair Trade isn't always regulated enough to make sure that standards are followed. Swiss Info


• Candy bar violence leads to 12 years in prison. The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette


• Woman bakes cookies on her dashboard, thereby negating any need for a vehicular air-freshener. The Union Leader


• A lack of red-tape may have contibuted to Cadbury's woes.
  The Birmingham Post


• New "buzzwords" campaign for Snickers is not "advertilicious."
  The Mercury News


• State senator purchases chocolate cake for $6,100 at 4-H auction.
  The Baltimore Sun


• French company set to launch three new items in their line of chocolate-based skin care products.
  Cosmetics Design Europe


• Scrabble master to rely on chocolate for a mid-tournament boost.
The Orange County Register

• Stephen Colbert displays Cocoa Puffs in an attempt to lure Senator Lieberman (a Democrat from Connecticut and avowed chocolate lover) into an interview. He does not succeed.
The Connecticut Post

• The Chocolate: Donald Trump's line of products for an opulent lifestyle includes chocolate bars.
The Philadelphia Inquirer

• Big chocolate makers in the U.K. squeeze smaller producers into niches.
  The Confectionary News

The Week of August 2, 2006

• Ben & Jerry's markets new milkshakes to help ice-cream lovers beat the heat.
  Press Release
  Burlington Free Press



• Peanut farmers suffer droughts, crop will most likely be the smallest since 1915.
  The Houston Chronicle



• Men's Health ranks the nutritional value of candy bars.
  WKRC 12 Cincinnati, OH



• Chocolate coating used by drug smugglers to throw police dogs off the scent.
  The Irrawaddy News (Burma)



• Ben & Jerry's--things are not quite the same since Unilever bought the company.
  The Times (London, UK)



• Chocolove releases their 2005 vintage, single-origin chocolate bars.
  PRWeb



• Cadbury begins their first ad campaign since the salmonella scandal.
  Brand Republic



• Cadbury to release three new products this fall.
  Web Wire



• Venezuelan farmers who had given up on the cacao industry can make three times as much money by selling organic beans.
  BBC News (U.K.)



• Another mood-mending chocolate bar, Chocollissima, hits the shelves.
  Web Wire



• Foster mother beats child for eating her candy bar.
  The Seattle Post-Intelligencer