Bittersweet Chocolate News in Europe

Chocolate is in the news across Europe these days, in more ways than one.

The French government came in for withering criticism from Malaysia on Monday for the so-called “Nutella Amendment” tax. If passed, the levy would quadruple - from 100 Euros to 400 Euros - the import tax on Malaysian palm oil, which makes up 20 percent of the chocolatey-buttery Nutella goodness, without which no French pantry feels entirely complete.

France's Socialist government claims the tax is part of an effort to curb a worrying increase of Gallic obesity, but given how much Nutella the French consume - rougly 100 million or so jars - it could also add some "40 million, more than $50 million, to help shore up the country's sagging finances. Malaysia's Palm Oil Council was quick to respond to the threat, saying “every nutritional and food expert concludes that palm oil is in fact free of dangerous trans fats, free of GMOs and contains valuable vitamins.” And a spokesman for F errero, the Italian company that produces Nutella, sought to reassure worried French consumers, saying it had no intention of changing its winning recipe.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the British government revealed that the Cadbury Dairy Milk bar had been reduced in size from 49 grams to 45 grams (1.73 ounces down to 1.59 ounces), while still being sold at the same price of 59 pence (94 cents) prompting the Office of National Statistics to include the change in its most recent consumer price index as a 10 percent price hike. As Richard Campbell, an ONS statistician, told the Telegraph, “Our price collectors noticed that chocolate bars and bags of sweets were decreasing in size by around 10 percent so we felt it was important to inform the public.”

If the European appetite for Nutella and Cadbury does begin to slide, however, there is no shortage of chocolatiers eager to step into the mix, as it were. A Portuguese producer told Confectionary News last week that it was ramping up production of a “passionfruit” chocolate bar in a bid to satisfy European demand for “exotic” chocolate flavors like pineapple, strawberry and orange.

Beyond its sweetness, chocolate also turns out to be a pretty good economic indicator in Europe. Demand for cocoa reached a two-year high this week. And chocolate sales in Western Europe, which accounts for 32 percent of global chocolate demand, are expected to increase. That prompted Jonathan Parkman, an agricultural expert at Marex Spectron Group in London to tell BloombergBusinessweek, “There has been a pretty good link between global GDP growth and the growth of chocolate consumption in the last 20 to 30 years and I don't think you can just throw that link away.”

In chocolate-rich Switzerland, producer AG Barry Callebaut, which produces chocolate for Hershey and Nestle, said it expected chocolate sales to pick up across Europe heading into 2013.

In Northern Ireland - a land kno wn less for its chocolate and more for potatoes and rebel movements - a company called Choc-O-Bloc announced this week it had made its first sales of an edible chocolate toy called Magic Choc. Designers worked for years to create a malleable - and edible - form of Belgian chocolate, both dark and white, which children could fashion into shapes and then eat. “Our technology allows the chocolate to be handcrafted into various models without melting in the process,” said founder Stephen Lennie.

Capping the chocolate tide was the news from Kings College London that researchers were looking into whether there was a link between a country's chocolate consumption and its propensity to garner Nobel Prizes. The best news yet? There was, indeed, a strong correlation!