Drumming up business: the gorilla may have worked wonders for block milk chocolate but it's been a mixed bag in confectionery, as steep raw material price increases add extra bite to the credit crunch

Grocer, Oct 4, 2008

Raising the Bar involves recipe changes to Mars bars, Twix, Milky Way and Snickers, which are having all artificial colours, flavours and preservatives removed in a progressive programme that will be complete in Europe by the end of autumn.

"Our work here goes much further than these product changes," says Fiona Dawson, Mars Snackfood MD. "This campaign is just the first step in our plans to make positive, meaningful changes to our confectionery and the way we do business."

Future changes will include the removal of 'nasties', flavours and preservatives from the whole of the company's confectionery range by the end of next year, reductions in trans fatty acids and the development of research into the antioxidant content of dark chocolate.

All this coincides with the launch of the Government's Change4life healthy eating and anti-obesity ad campaign, which kicked off this month. Change41ife will add to the publicity regarding overweight children and adults, and the media coverage of this area has already changed consumers' behaviour, says Marcell Redpath, account director at consultancy Dragon Brands. "Focus is moving from restrictive eating patterns to eating for health and permissible indulgences.

"The chocolate and sugar confectionery industries have had to work out ways in which to satisfy this," he says. "But getting the balance is important as sweets have a role to play as an accessible treat. If it becomes too healthy, that treat starts to feel a lot less credible."

Premium chocolate

The assortment of high-end chocolates and products available from specialist chocolatiers that have emerged certainly qualify as a treat.

Handmade using high-quality ingredients, they offer a point of difference from Ferrero Rocher or an After Eight. Innovative infusions such as Earl Grey tea, mirabelle plum and tobacco are satisfying consumer demand for variety.

But luxury taste comes at a luxury price, and with raw material prices rocketing, and consumers cutting back to save their pennies for essentials, could this mean crunch time for posh chocs and chocolatiers?

Whatever happens in the credit crunch, experts believe the consumer palate is now sufficiently well trained to know a decent chocolate when it tastes one. And, says Rebecca Kerswell, owner and head chocolatier at Coco Chocolate, "this will help ensure that customers remain loyal to the premium market throughout economic i difficulties."

Coco, like other specialist chocolate houses, offers chocolate-tasting evenings to educate people in the art of chocolate making, and to encourage comparisons between vegetable fat-based chocolate with its own more refined cocoa butter offering.

Although consumers might be cutting back on first-class flights, Marc Demarquette, chocolatier at Demarquette Fine Chocolates, says the one or two pounds spent on chocolate hasn't been affected yet. "We get a lot of customers coming in and saying it's their little treat of the week."

Simon Coyle, MD of Kshocolat, agrees. He would rather be a chocolatier than a salesman of luxury cars or long-haul flights at the moment, he says, though he doesn't deny the industry will be affected in some way and believes the next few months and possibly years, won't be easy.