http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-
chocolate14apr14,0,4722074.story?track=mostemailedlink

The courage of their confections
Two candy makers are asking chocolate lovers to protest plans to 
allow cheaper ingredients. Vegetable oil, anyone?
By Jerry Hirsch
Times Staff Writer

April 14, 2007

Calling all chocoholics. Put down the truffles and power up the PC. 
It's time to weigh in on a fundamental question: What is chocolate?

Two of California's oldest confectioners, See's Candies Inc. and 
Guittard Chocolate Co., are battling an attempt to loosen government 
rules that dictate what ingredients go into the sweet stuff.

Legally, the candy that melts hearts and comforts the brokenhearted 
is made with cocoa butter and, in the case of milk chocolate, whole 
milk. But the Grocery Manufacturers of America, a trade group, wants 
to let confectioners substitute cheaper ingredients — vegetable oils 
and milk protein concentrates.

Gary Guittard, president of his eponymous, family-owned business, 
sees this as a battle for the soul of the popular confection.

"Anybody who has a passion for chocolate doesn't want to see it 
adulterated," said Guittard, whose great-grandfather Etienne Guittard 
founded the company in San Francisco in 1868.

But the trade group, which has the support of the Chocolate 
Manufacturers of America, says it's just thinking outside the old 
chocolate box. The petition is part of a broad effort to give its 
members more flexibility in choosing the ingredients that go into 
many food products. A spokeswoman said the proposed rules would not 
prevent companies such as See's and Guittard from adhering to the 
current standards for chocolate.

Nevertheless, Guittard and See's Chief Executive Brad Kinstler want 
America's chocoholics to complain loudly to the Food and Drug 
Administration before April 25, the day the agency will stop taking 
public comments on the issue.

It's a big constituency. About a quarter of Americans eat chocolate 
at least once every two weeks, according to market research firm NPD 
Group Inc. All told, the U.S. consumes 3.6 billion pounds of 
chocolate annually — that's 12 pounds per person.

The chocolatiers have urged lovers of the candy to visit Guittard's 
DontMessWithOurChocolate.com website, where they can electronically 
submit complaints to the FDA.

The idea of substituting vegetable oil for cocoa butter, a natural 
component of the cocoa bean that is the traditional source of 
chocolate, irks Andrea Langston of Long Beach.

"I would feel like I was being duped," said Langston, who has taken a 
liking to dark organic chocolate.

"It's $3.50 a bar, but it is so worth it. You just eat one square at 
a time," said the 36-year-old employee of a computer products company.

Langston and other self- respecting lovers of what the Mayans called 
the food of the gods should be worried about producers' substituting 
oils for cocoa butter, said Kristy Choo, artisan chocolatier at Jin 
Patisserie in Venice.

"It won't be as intense as a real chocolate. It will have a waxy 
taste," said Choo, whose mango-basil, lavender and ginger-cinnamon 
chocolate squares sell in a six-piece box for $15.

Price is at the heart of the argument over whether manufacturers 
should be allowed to change the ingredients of chocolate, said 
Kinstler of See's, which has 205 stores and is based in South San 
Francisco.

"You can make chocolate a lot cheaper with vegetable oil," he said.

A pound of chocolate contains more than 4 ounces of cocoa butter, at 
a cost of about $2.30, said Guittard Chocolate, based in Burlingame, 
Calif. The same amount of vegetable oil was 70 cents.

Hershey Co., which supports the Grocery Manufacturers' petition, said 
the standards were created decades ago and should be modernized.

By adopting the proposal, the FDA would be providing "flexibility to 
make changes based on consumer taste preferences, ingredient costs 
and availability and shelf life," said Kirk Saville, spokesman for 
the Hershey, Pa.-based company.

Saville said it could be years before the FDA issued a decision.

Hershey is supporting the move to loosen chocolate rules at a time 
when sales of premium and gourmet versions of the food are exploding.

Late last year, Hershey launched its upscale Cacao Reserve brand. Two 
years ago, it purchased artisan chocolatier Scharffen Berger 
Chocolate Maker Inc., a Berkeley confectioner known for its dark 
chocolates and cocoa. It also recently acquired Ashland, Ore.-based 
Dagoba Organic Chocolate.

The proposed rule change is part of a strategy by Hershey and other 
large producers to segment the industry, lowering the quality and 
expense of everyday candy bars while marketing high-quality, high-
priced premium chocolate, said Marcia Mogelonsky, an analyst with 
market research firm Mintel International.

"If you take the cocoa butter out of an inexpensive candy bar, most 
people probably won't notice," Mogelonsky said.

Sales of premium chocolate topped $2 billion last year, a 129% 
increase in five years, Mintel said. Sales are expected to continue 
at a torrid pace, reaching $3.5 billion by 2011.

Gourmet offerings include chocolate infused with wine, honey, chai 
and other exotic flavors.

Some bars are made with cacao from a single region, almost like a 
wine appellation, and others have high cacao contents ranging up to 
72%.

Medical studies that have found that flavonols and antioxidants in 
chocolate might play a role in reducing strokes and heart failure — 
as long as the fat doesn't kill you — have only added to the growth 
in premium chocolate bars, Mogelonsky said.

Gary Guittard believes that in proposing to change the rules, the 
food industry is overthinking what he believes should be one of the 
simple joys of life.

"Why add ingredients to something that is just fine the way it is?" 
he asked.