Chocolate makers seek sweet success in China_美文

Chocolate makers seek sweet success in China

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As global cocoa prices become more stable, foreign chocolate makers are expanding quickly in China.

World cocoa prices hit a 10-month high in early September as a result of uncertainty over the crop, but the prices remain well below the height they reached last year during the civil war in the Ivory Coast.

"We opened our China company last month to better support the company's development in the country," said Thomas P. Meier, managing director of Lindt & Sprungli (China) Ltd, a maker of premium chocolates.

He said the Chinese market is very important to the company, even more so than the Japanese market.

The company has established more than 3,000 points of sale and duty-free outlets in China, mainly in cities.

Industry research suggests that the Chinese consume less chocolate than European or US consumers.

"Generally, we believe that in China people consume 200 grams of chocolate a year each on average, while in the United Kingdom the corresponding figure is 12 kilograms and, in Japan, it is about 2 kilograms," said Katherine Zhou, regional director of Ipsos, a market research company. "The market is steadily expanding, and Chinese people do trust and prefer European chocolate brands."

Someone who searches for "chocolate" on the e-commerce website Taobao.com is likely to find that the best-selling brands have words such as "Europe, "handmade" or "authentic" associated with them.