Chocolate News
The Christmas Chocolate Wars Are Well Underway And Ever So Posh
FORBES Chocolate companies are gearing up for one of the biggest confectionary showdowns of the year. The “chocolate season” begins just before Halloween, taking in Christmas (which accounts for about a quarter of total annual sales in both the U.S and the U.K.), Valentines Day and ending in the consumption of Easter eggs (the busiest time of year for chocolate consumption). While the Swiss eat the most chocolate per person, people in the U.K. will eat almost twice as much as their American counterparts.Ottoman town hosts its own chocolate factory, museum
Walking around in museums is a delight but walking around in a museum full of chocolate? Well, that is delicious. Known for its historic Ottoman architecture and serenity that you can hardly find in the 21st century, the Black Sea region province of Karabük’s famous district of Safranbolu is now home to the Chocolate Museum.
New WholeFruit chocolate cuts waste by using entire cacao fruit
The recipe is the latest innovation from Swiss chocolatier Barry Callebaut. As modern consumers prioritize less sugar, more nutrients and less damage to the environment, the company is playing to the trend with products based on a recipe using 100% of the fruit. About 70% of the cacao fruit is typically discarded in the traditional process of making chocolate, which is increasingly regarded as very wasteful. The company says using the entire fruit, from beans to peels, pulp, and juice, “results in a range of high-quality ingredients that can be used in … juices, smoothies, frozen desserts, bakery and pastry products, and snacks all the way to chocolate”.
A chocolate-making robot is preparing to make world’s best sweets from your kitchen counter
CocoTerra, a Palo Alto, California start-up, has developed the world’s first kitchen countertop chocolate-making appliance, with design partner Ammunition. A companion app guides users on how to make chocolate, right down to choosing the bean. So far, the company raised $2 million in angel financing from investors, including John Scharffenberger, recognized as the father of the American craft chocolate movement.
It Turns out Chocolate is a Lot Older than we Previously Thought
Most modern historians believe that chocolate has been around for about 4,000 years, spreading from Mexico and Central America to the US about 1,000 years ago, but new evidence suggests that the “food of the gods” has been around a lot longer than that. Researchers now believe that chocolate has been used for as long as the last 5,500 years, and that it started out in South America, in the upper Amazon, not Mexico, as was commonly thought.