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Inside U.K.

Chocolate Industry Charms Every Brit's Sweet Tooth

By STEVE HILL

It's officialBritons are world-champion consumers of chocolate and sweets.

The average man or woman in the street here consumes nearly 16 kilograms of confectionery per year. That compares to 10 kg in the United States, less than 9 kg in France and a minuscule 3 kg in Japan.

These statistics, and more ― more than the average number of M & M’s per bag ― are contained in the 1997 Confectionery Market Review, which was recently published here.

It is produced each year by Cadbury and Trebor Bassett and reveals how hooked we Brits are on sweet snacks.

Did you know, for example, that enough Cadbury's Dairy Milk is sold each year to cover 430 soccer pitches?

Or munch on this fact: One year's output of Cadbury's Creme Eggs weighs more than 1,500 African elephants. The company uses more than 50,000 tons of cocoa beans annually, which is enough to fill the Royal Albert Hall, a famous concert hall in London, four times.

It's clearly no accident that Theobroma cacao — the botanical name for the cocoa tree — means "food of the gods," as chocolate is consumed here with almost religious zeal.

British people traditionally have what we call "a sweet tooth," i.e., a love of chocolate and sweets.

A friend of mine, Spencer Allen, is a typical consumer of chocolate. He is the sort of person that eats chocolate, in some kind or form, every day. He said, "I have to taste chocolate every day, which, I guess, makes me a chocoholic.

"If I don't eat it I begin to get withdrawal symptoms."

Chocolate sales in Britain have increased by 16 percent in the last 10 years to an incredible 850,000 tons, taking revenue through the £5 billion (¥1 trillion) barrier for the first time.

The review document makes fascinating reading for a chocoholic like myself, who is clearly playing an important role in these statistics.

Regional variations in consumption reveal that Londoners eat the least amount of confectionery in a week — just £1.45 (¥300) worth per week. But here in the West Country, my own neck of the woods, we spend the most, at £2.09 (¥430) per week!

There's a worldwide appeal to many of the products available here, as seen by the fact that 360 million Creme Eggs are produced each year by Cadbury, with a third being exported to North America.

The Creme Egg celebrates its 75th birthday in 1998, Bournville — a brand of dark, plain chocolate — is 90 this year, while Roses, Cadbury's most successful boxed chocolates, celebrate their 60th birthday.

If the European Parliament has anything to do with it though, Cadbury would be forced to stop selling its "milk chocolate" product.

Bureaucrats in Brussels argue that the chocolate contains vegetable fats as well as cocoa butter and therefore should be called something else.

French and Belgian chocolate makers say only chocolate made purely from cocoa butter is milk chocolate.

While Cadbury and the European Parliament fight it out, The Chocolate Society continues to grow in popularity.

Formed in 1990 by three dedicated chocolate enthusiasts, one of its main priorities is to draw attention to the difference between the complex delicacy that the world's greatest cooks, chefs and gourmets recognize as chocolate, and what they term the "low grade" confection consumed in such vast quantities by the British.

The society claims that the principal ingredient of commercial chocolate bars is not cocoa but sugar, plus saturated vegetable fat and powdered milk.

And it states that true chocolate — containing up to 70 percent cocoa solids and very little sugar — is a far purer and healthier product.

The society began selling its own chocolate by mail order, but demand was so great that it now has a shop in London, which is proving a great success.

There is clearly a good market for the real McCoy — more than 7,500 people have signed up to become lifetime members of the society.

Reassuringly, for us compulsive chocolate eaters, it is claimed that true chocolate is not fattening or tooth-rotting — now that's exactly what I wanted to hear!

For more details of how to become a lifetime member of the Chocolate Society, send an international reply coupon to: The Chocolate Society, Clay Pit Lane, Roecliffe, Nr Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, YO5 9LS, ENGLAND.

Shukan ST: Feb. 20, 1998

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