Chocolate Consumption, Manufacturing and Quality in Western Europe and the United States
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Kingdom – eat on average about ten kilograms of GEOGRAPHY Chocolate chocolate per person every year (Zackowitz, VOLUME 91(3) 2004). Why do Western Europeans consume so PAGES 218-226 much more chocolate on average than Americans? Consumption, Why do Americans and the British have a different understanding of what constitutes quality Manufacturing and chocolate from continental Europeans? We argue that the history of chocolate manufacturing in Europe explains how and why different notions Quality in Western of quality developed. Each innovation in the manufacturing process influenced under- Geography © 2006 standings of quality in the chocolate industry in Europe and the the country in which the innovation was made. These understandings of what constitutes quality chocolate, in turn, influence how chocolate is United States manufactured and marketed in the respective countries. Finally, traditions in marketing and HEIKE C. ALBERTS AND manufacturing shape and are shaped by JULIE L. CIDELL consumer preferences, showing that cultural and economic processes are at work simul- taneously. Our analysis suggests that continental ABSTRACT: In this article we examine why European chocolate manufacturers’ dual focus on chocolate consumption patterns and traditional understandings of quality on the one understandings of quality vary significantly hand, and innovation in terms of flavours on the between the United States and Western Europe other hand, make their chocolate bars so popular. on the one hand, and among western European In both the United States and in Europe, countries on the other hand. We argue that mass-market chocolate makes up the lion’s share different attitudes towards chocolate and of the chocolate market, with gourmet chocolates different marketing strategies by chocolate only accounting for 3.2% in the United States manufacturers explain much of the difference (Hopkins, 2005). Originally, only small-scale in consumption patterns. In many continental producers made chocolate, but in recent decades European countries, chocolate is considered a the chocolate industry has become increasingly serious food rather than an indulgence, and dominated by just a few large, often multinational, consumers demand both tradition and companies (Fold, 2000). Because of the innovation to a much larger degree than in the dominance of these large manufacturers, we limit United States. Differences in understandings of our analysis to mass-market chocolates. We believe that they are a better indicator of general quality can largely be explained through the trends in chocolate manufacturing and chocolate history of chocolate manufacturing in consumption patterns than gourmet chocolates. individual countries, with many continental Chocolates produced by smaller companies often European countries emphasising quality cater to a more upscale market and reflect ingredients and quality-oriented manufacturing regional variations in chocolate preferences, processes, while many British and US complicating the patterns significantly. In this manufacturers prioritise cost over quality. article, however, our main concern is not with sub-national differences, but variations among Most people love chocolate, probably because it countries. In our analysis we primarily contrast the has a particularly complex taste made up of more United States and Western Europe, but also than 500 flavour components, which is address differences among Western European considerably more than most other foods countries. In particular, it is important to point out (Albright, 1997; Richardson, 2003). Americans like that the UK’s chocolate industry has taken a chocolate so much that they eat about five different path from continental Western European kilograms of chocolate products per person per producers. While the UK is distinctly European year (Figure 1). This may seem like a large in its chocolate consumption patterns, its amount, but Europeans consume significantly understandings of chocolate quality are more like more chocolate. The inhabitants of the main those of the US, resulting in a bitter dispute 218 chocolate-producing countries – Switzerland, among the member states of the European Union Belgium, Germany, Austria and the United about what constitutes quality chocolate. Figure 1: Chocolate consumption (kg). Source: GEOGRAPHY 12 Zackowitz, 2004. CHOCOLATE 10 CONSUMPTION, MANUFACTURING s 8 AND QUALITY m a r 6 g o l i K 4 2 Geography © 2006 0 y d n m ria K rk A an a iu t U a S rl m lg us m U e r e A n itz e B e w G D S Background examines in detail the history of the Mars Company. Similarly, Terrio (2000) provides an in- depth analysis of chocolate manufacturing in There is no shortage of publications about France. Szogyi’s Chocolate: Food of the gods chocolate. Numerous books and articles – both (1997) is probably the only collection of popular and academic – focus on nutrition and contributions addressing a wide range of health aspects and seem to be split in their overall contemporary trends within the chocolate assessment of chocolate, with some authors industry, including regional differences and the condemning it for its high sugar content that can recent popularity of gourmet chocolates. lead to weight-gain and tooth decay, and others However, none of these works investigate the praising chocolate’s positive health effects. main differences in chocolate consumption, Another body of literature centres on cultural manufacturing and understandings of quality histories of chocolate. The most well-known is between the United States and Western Europe to Coe and Coe’s The True History of Chocolate explicitly tie these differences to the historical (1996). This book describes how chocolate was development of chocolate manufacturing in these first invented as a spicy drink by the Olmec, Aztec countries. and Maya of Mesoamerica, but when introduced in Europe after the Spanish Conquest of Mexico in 1519, it was mixed with sugar to better suit The origins of chocolate European tastes. It then explains innovations in chocolate making and modern commercial production. Most other cultural histories of Cocoa grows on a tree called Theobroma cacao, chocolate draw heavily on this work, and are which literally translates as ‘food of the gods’. The therefore similar in content. There is also an cocoa tree only flourishes between 20° north and impressive array of recipe collections, some of south, as it needs warm temperatures, year-round which are published by the chocolate companies moisture, and midges for pollination. Theobroma themselves to promote their products. There was cacao is an unusual tree as it flowers directly from a flurry of publications about the chocolate the trunk, rather than from the branches (Figure industry in the 1920s and 1950s, but since then 2). The flowers develop into pods that contain 30 relatively little academic work has been done, to 40 bitter-tasting beans surrounded by a sweet, partly because the chocolate industry is so juicy pulp. When they are ripe, the pods are secretive about recipes and production methods harvested and opened by hand (Figure 3). Then that it is virtually impossible to conduct primary the pulp and beans are put in a heap under banana research (Brenner, 2000). Exceptions include leaves to ferment, resulting in the beans 219 Pottker’s Crisis in Candyland (1995), which developing the typical chocolate taste. The beans liked their chocolate with foam. In order to GEOGRAPHY create it, the Spaniards invented the molinillo, a CHOCOLATE stick twirled between the hands. As chocolate CONSUMPTION, drinking spread through Europe, the French MANUFACTURING invented the chocolatière, or chocolate pot, to AND QUALITY serve it in style (Coe and Coe, 1996). Chocolate drinking became an important ritual among the European elite, with each country it spread to making a contribution to that ritual. As demand for cocoa beans increased, the colonial powers Geography © 2006 started growing cocoa in other parts of their empires, namely in South America (especially Brazil), West Africa (especially Ghana and the Ivory Coast), and Southeast Asia (especially Indonesia) (Ullmann, 1997). Today, the largest cocoa producers are all former colonies outside Central America (Figure 4). Innovations in chocolate manufacturing While chocolate drinking spread quickly among the European elite, it was not until the industrial period that it became available to the general Figure 2: Cocoa fruit. Photo: www.infozentrum-schoko.de population. The introduction of steam power made the grinding of the cocoa beans more are then dried for transport (Coe and Coe, 1996; efficient, and other technological breakthroughs Info-Zentrum Schokolade, 2005). revolutionised chocolate manufacturing and Cocoa first became popular among lowered its cost substantially (Ullmann, 1997). Mesoamerican peoples such as the Olmec, Maya These processes also had an important and Aztec. They roasted the dried cocoa beans, geographical impact, as chocolate manufacturing ground them and mixed them with water as well shifted from Spain and France, the countries as various spices, such as chilli. The resulting drink where chocolate first became popular, to the was called xocoatl1, a mixture of the terms xoco northern and central European countries where for bitter and atl for spicy (Info-Zentrum most of the innovations in the industrial age took Schokolade, 2005). As we know from images on place (Coe and Coe, 1996). ceramics and in the Maya codices (books), the The period of rapid innovation began