It's Christmas Week , Guys!

Christmas is just around the corner, so I'll try to have a Christmas oriented blog for a couple of days, including music, facts, articles, and other fun stuff!

Enjoy !!

The World Is Flat, and Chocolatiers Want to Coat It

By JOHN TAGLIABUE
The New York Times__ December 17, 2007

ZURICH — When the cold winter wind blows off Lake Zurich, the people who live around this sprawling factory, a 10-minute ride from the center of town, can smell the chocolate in the air. It is especially pungent this time of the year, when the factories are humming to meet holiday demand, the chocolate-maker’s bonanza.

“Some people who live around a factory mind the odor,” said Sara Bouachir, an official of Lindt & Sprüngli, the $2.1 billion-a-year Swiss chocolate giant that runs the factory. “But not here.”

But factories like this face a challenge. The Swiss already consume an average of more than 25 pounds of chocolate a year, placing them second only to the British, so how do you get them to eat more? This is driving the chocolate-makers of Zurich to new heights of innovation, with dark chocolates flavored like hot chili peppers, grappa or saffron.

It is also making Swiss chocolate a case study in globalization. Swiss chocolatiers, having long ago conquered markets in Europe and North America, are now aiming at the vast expanses of Russia, India and China.

Zurich itself remains a haven for chocolate-lovers, with cozy chocolate shops nestled among the big Swiss banks, like UBS and Credit Suisse, along the noble Bahnhofstrasse. Stores like Teuscher and Sprüngli stand next to luxury shops like Cartier and Chanel.

“People are more and more sensitive about quality; they buy less but higher quality,” said Ms. Bouachir. “People do tastings, as with wine, and they want to know the background of their chocolate.”

Barry Callebaut runs seven huge chocolate factories, including two in Switzerland, from which it supplies industrial chocolate to the likes of Hershey, Nestlé and Cadbury Schweppes. It also has its own consumer brands, like Van Houten and Van Leer. Listed on the Zurich stock exchange, its shares have soared more than 50 percent this year.

The strategy Barry Callebaut employs to lure the Swiss into eating more chocolate is essentially the one it uses to seduce consumers globally: emphasizing chocolate’s contribution to good health (some studies have found that dark chocolate may be good for the heart).

Some say the Swiss are saturated. “You could give chocolate away, not for free, but for much cheaper,” said Franz Urs Schmid, director of Chocosuisse, the chocolate-makers association. “But it wouldn’t increase the quantity the Swiss consume.”

Barry Callebaut is not waiting for the Swiss to eat more chocolate. This year, it opened a factory near Moscow, and in January will inaugurate another near Shanghai. “In North America, it’s the eight weeks prior to Christmas,” Ms. Tschofen said, listing the world’s chocolate-eating seasons. “In Germany it’s still Christmas, in Russia it’s New Year’s, and in Japan it’s St. Valentine’s Day.”