Barry Callebaut, the largest chocolate maker in the world, has announced the development of the “Volcano” chocolate bar. Supposedly, this bar is low in calories and does not melt at temperatures below 131º Fahrenheit (or 55º Celsius). Ordinary chocolate starts melting around 90º Fahrenheit.
This all sounds like chemists gone wild. Who needs an engineered chocolate product?
Lo-Cal? When I want chocolate, I want the real thing, not some stripped down lo-cal version. When I am concerned about calories, I eat less–it always works.
High melting point? Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of chocolate? You know, that melt in your mouth sensation? To have “Volcano” melt in your mouth, you’d have to be dead of hyperpyrexia. I’m not kidding. Life-threatening fever starts at 106º.
Apparently, the target markets for this concoction are diet-obsessed Americans and new consumers in “emerging markets,” i.e., the countries outside the temperate zones.
Hershey’s dismal failure to market a no-melt chocolate bar has obviously not dissuaded Barry Callebaut from trying again. Maybe they should have taken a page from Mars’ playbook. Provide merchants in hot climates with small cooled displays and you can sell your chocolate around the world.
