Indian Chocolate Industry If there’s one thing on the planet that has everyone putty in its hands, it’s chocolate, and there are many variations of them. Depending on the country it originates and the cultural influence on the production, chocolates come in different shapes, sizes and flavors. What’s more, they’re even produced in different colors and each color of chocolate is extracted from different phases of the extraction process from cocoa beans, which by themselves are brown in color. And coming to white chocolate, whether you are aware of it or not, they don’t actually fall under the category of “chocolates.” The reason being they are made from a mix of milk products, sugar, vanilla, a fatty substance called lecithin and cocoa butter, which is a by-product of the main ingredient which is necessary to make chocolate. Coming to the preparation of chocolates, starting from dark chocolate to white chocolate, it begins with cocoa beans. Although cocoa beans are where it all begins, we must also know about cacao; yes, they are two different things, although only having a subtle difference. The minute difference between cocoa and cacao is that cocoa powder is raw cacao that has been roasted at high temperatures and raw cacao is cacao beans that are not roasted, but cold-pressed, hence retaining the enzymes inside, but with the fat removed, which is nothing but cocoa butter. Now that we know the difference between cocoa and raw cacao, let’s move onto how they are used to make popular chocolates we all love and consume. The recent shift from traditional Indian sweets to packaged premium chocolates has seen a raise in sales volume of these affordable luxury chocolates because of the purchasing power that is a result of an increase in the disposable income of most Indians nowadays. It has enabled us Indians to treat our palettes to a variety of products in the chocolate segment and the introduction of international brands like mars introducing premium or higher priced products is only spoiling us further with choice, no complaints there though. India has seen a 50% spike in the consumption of chocolate from 2011 to 2016 as per market research conducted by market research firm Mintel. Chocolate brands like Cadbury India with its dairy milk range of products, Nestlé with its popular range of products such as Kit Kat, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. operating as Amul that are the oldest and strongest players are now facing fierce competition from international brands of the likes of The Hershey Company, Ferrero Rocher, Mars Inc, Lindt & Sprüngli Ag. With the advent of globalization and India scaling up to compete with the big guns of the international markets, the Indian brands are doing all they can to level up. In 2017 alone, a whopping 228,000 tons of chocolate was consumed by Indians proving that no hurdle is too big for the chocolate industry to rocket into impressive sales. Keeping in mind the Indian Chocolate market and the booming sales its producing, and a view of the total sales in 2017, which were at an all-time high of $1.3 billion, a prediction has been made for the projected sales to shoot up to $3.3 billion by 2023 by the analysts at techsciresearch. The trend of gifting chocolates, promoted by most leading and upcoming chocolate brands in India is only a happy nod for this tradition to continue because of its ease and the general outlook of people, who are now welcoming the creative efforts of the chocolate companies to package their products in tune with all the vibrant and colorful festivals aplenty that we Indians celebrate.
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