What is the future of Making Chocolate?
Making chocolate as a business and looking at what the future of chocolate making holds, requires a keen eye of the market. As a chocolatier and small business owner like you, I ponder these business models and would like to share my discoveries in hope that it inspires and helps you grow your business.
Because Santa Barbara Chocolate is upstream from most retail operations, as a wholesale chocolate supplier, we get to see trends before they make their way to the general retail market. We sell to many thousand chocolatier customers and as a result we see what the latest attitude and chocolate buying signals are in the gourmet American chocolate market. If you haven't already started your chocolate shop or chocolate business, you may want to read our article on starting a chocolate business before embarking into the chocolate making trends article below: Chocolate Shop Start Up
A Brief Survey on Chocolate Consumption
Chocolate has taken the top position in the world for the most frequently enjoyed confectionery. Chocolate leads the market at the highest consumption ratio of 37% world wide in confectionery.
Being one of the most highly-consumed products, chocolate is observed to be eaten on a weekly basis. Most respondents, upon inquiry, said that they eat chocolate more than 3 times a week. With such a high consumption, there are things that are necessary to address by most chocolate manufacturers. These will become driving factors in the market in upcoming months.
- Would Cutting Sugar Improve Chocolate Health?
- Can Manufacturing Cut Sugar Through Higher Quality Chocolate Ingredients?
Underlying Health Concerns
It is necessary to address these concerns because diseases such as obesity and diabetes are health issues around the world and there is more publicity around sugar in confection.
What Is Acceptable in the Market?
There are many cheap tasting chocolates in the market riddled with high sugar content. According to a recent analysis conducted by Euromonitor, cutting down sugar and focusing on other essential quality ingredients can grow the chocolate business for chocolate manufacturers. This points to the use of higher quality bulk chocolate as an ingredient. Quality bulk chocolate tends to be lower in sugar and will in general improve overall eating experience while reducing sugar for a chocolate truffle or candy maker.
Consumer research shows that people are now more inclined than ever to choose pure chocolate or darker chocolate in an effort to cut back on artificial ingredients, sugar and salt. This change in lifestyle is what will urge chocolate makers to enhance the quality of ingredients within their chocolate truffles, chocolate bars and confectionery in order to improve sales and gain market share.
The Paradigm Shift of Product Strategy - Cut back on Sugar by Choosing Quality Chocolate
A few years back Cadbury marketed Bourneville, a dark chocolate bar, through mesmerizing advertisements. The focus was centered on a single message that Bournville is made from the highest quality cocoa beans which are hand chosen by one of their experts.
Ultimately Bourneville became a thriving success in the UK market as a dark chocolate choice.
A mindset that dark chocolate is better and healthier alternative as compared to other chocolates started with this marketing campaign. Scientifically there is proof that dark chocolate is the right choice and as a result chocolate makers worldwide have seen an increase in sales of dark chocolate.
This adaptation of Cadbury going viral with dark chocolate challenged other chocolate manufacturers on the market such as Nestle. Nestle has recently announced that they will minimize the sweetness / sugar level of their chocolate products by 40%. The secret is in treating sugar crystals and altering their crystalline structures. The new chocolates manufactured using the advanced sugar crystals will enter the market by 2018.
The easiest way of cutting down sugar in chocolate truffles and chocolate bars is to use premium bulk chocolate ingredients (you get quality, lower sugar and full chocolate flavor). During their briefing, Euromonitor further stated, that consumers purchasing chocolates should be educated about the cocoa beans, premium ingredients and other added ingredients. This way, individuals will be well aware of what they are purchasing and how it is going to be beneficial or not for their health.
Candy Bar Size is a Question
Candy Bars where chocolate is not a main ingredient but rather sweetened peanuts, caramel, nougat and other fillings may remain with a high sugar content even if they are coated in a high cocoa solid dark chocolate. Chocolate with high cocoa solids such as a dark chocolate with 75% cocoa solids can have up to 25% less sugar than a standard coating chocolate.
According to the PHE, (Public Health England), if you are a chocolate manufacturer and you don’t wish to cut down on the sugar ingredients in your product, then simply reduce the size of the product. PHE is highly focused and concerned about meeting reduced sugar targets. The most sensible solution if sugar can't be reduced (due to caramel or nougat fillings), reduce the size of the candy so the serving size is smaller.
Reducing serving size along with choosing higher cocoa solid chocolate ingredients will improve the overall chocolate eating experience for your customer. Most chocolate consumers will agree that higher quality chocolate with less sugar makes the difference.
Consider quality with taste. Live Happy, Live Strong, Live Long.
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