Posted on 06/10/2013 1:12:08 PM PDT by rickmichaels
JOHANNESBURG - Snacks company Mondelez International Inc is close to introducing heat-resistant chocolate it can sell at market stalls in Africa and some of the world's hottest places, a senior executive said on Thursday.
The maker of Cadbury chocolate and Oreo cookies has spent at least ten years on research and is close to introducing the new snacks to consumers, according to Lawrence MacDougall, the company's president for Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA), although he declined to give a specific date for the roll-out.
He gave no details on the content of the chocolate, how it tasted or what it would be called but said that it could solve the problems Mondelez and other snack producers face in sub-Saharan Africa, where many consumers shop in outdoor markets and food can be left for hours in the blazing heat.
"It can withstand 40 degrees and not turn to liquid," MacDougall told Reuters in an interview.
"We launched the patent last year. It's in development now. We're looking at commercialising it pretty soon. It will be for where we are challenged on climate and retail environments."
Although supermarket chains like South Africa's Massmart and Kenya's Uchumi are expanding in Africa, there are still relatively few trading environments where products like chocolate can be kept cool, MacDougall said.
"You go to an open market in Lagos, you don't find many cool places there," he said. "As supermarkets expand it will make it easier for us, but at the moment we want to move fast."
Faced with maturing markets in the United States and Europe, Mondelez is betting on emerging economies to drive its growth.
Although home to a billion people, two-thirds of whom are under 35, Africa accounted for just 26 percent of Mondelez's EEMEA revenue in 2012 - or just short of $1 billion.
The company aims to make its products affordable to low-income consumers, for example by selling Oreos in packs of two rather than 12.
It also sells single sticks of gum in countries like Egypt and Morocco, which it plans to introduce into other markets.
Mondelez's chief executive said last month it expects to increase investment in emerging markets by $100 million this year and by up to $300 million in 2015.
Oh we could use it as heat tiles on the Shuttle! Oh wait, we don’t have a manned space program anymore and their mission is now Muslim outreach. Submission Accomplished...
A problem the US Army tried to solve when sending troops to the Pacific Theater in 1942.
Way back in Viet Nam we had Hershey’s tropical chocolate bars. I think they came in the sundry packs. Loved them.
Maybe this is a new and improved version, but the idea is hardly new.
Your Vietnam experience probably predated my Japan experience by a quarter century.
In 2005, when I started sending packages to troops in Iraq, everybody, including See’s, warned me not to send chocolate during the warm months, which was almost the entire year over there. Of course, I did not pay attention and sent chocolate anyway. In my e-mails to Marines at Fallujah and al-Ramadi, I asked them to let me know if the chocolate arrived in a messy mass; I never received answers to my queries.
At the 2008 Birthday Ball at Disneyland, I asked several Marines why I never received a response regarding the condition of the chocolate when it arrived. One Marine said, “Well, sir, we were worried that you would stop sending it if we said anything. Besides, sir, we’re all about adapting; we just licked the chocolate off the wrappers.”
640 packages later, I’m still sending chocolate out. It’s 120 degrees in Afghanistan and the Navy surgeons, nurses and Corpsmen at FOB Shukvani appreciate chocolate in all forms, even melted.
Viet Nam was 66 - 68. I was stationed in Okinawa and Japan 68 - 70.
Thank God for this blessing from Cadbury.
Our nation is going to hell as fast as the phony from nowhere can peddle and we’re going to have heat resistant chocolate.
Carnauba wax, I believe, remains one of the most popular additives to raise melting points in food. However, it is far more popular in things like gummy candies than chocolate.
“Melts in the reactor, but not in your hands!”
The stuff we had was pretty dry, like it was dry ingredients pressed together.
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