Barry Callebaut introduces new online resource for ruby chocolate
Global confectionery group Barry Callebaut has launched a new online resource to celebrate the commercial anniversary of ruby chocolate’s release.
The creation of rubychocolate.com is backed by an extension to the range through Nestle Japan, which will release its Kitkat everyday Nuts and Cranberry from March 25, following a successful initial unveiling of the brand to consumers in Tokyo last year.
As the company noted, the ruby brand has made a key impact within retail and ‘foodie’ markets, with the range now available across the world – with at least 11 product launches at this year’s ISM event.
The Swiss-headquartered business said the creation of the new website would ‘put consumers in the driving seat’ to explore the pink chocolate product’s potential applications and offer the chance to share their inspirations for creating new confectionery and bakery items using ruby chocolate.
Bas Smit, the company’s global vice president of marketing, believed the new online resource for ruby would connect with a broad global audience.
He said: “Inspired by tech initiatives who were cocreated by the crowd, such as the game Minecraft and open source operating systems Android and Linux, the fourth type of chocolate introduces its own crowdsourced platform. Rubychocolate.com is a shared asset. The ultimate goal is, by facilitating the consumer’s voice, to develop this new chocolate category.”
Since the launch of ruby, the fourth type of chocolate, the new variety has already collected more than 120 million search results on Google. In comparison, this is more than 15% of the search results for Milk chocolate, which accounts for about 70% of global chocolate sales.
Many chocolate experts and media forecast ruby will be the food trend of 2019, among them the global research agency Innova Market Insights. In Japan, business magazine Nikkei Trendy put ruby on its ‘Top 30 Trends List’. Their list is based on a product’s sales, impact on the industry and impact on consumers.
The KitKat Chocolatory reported that 30% of its sales were to the new ruby Sublime brand, with research showing that 42% of the Japanese population is aware of Ruby chocolate and 5% have already tasted it, even though it was not broadly available in retail, and 82% said they were interested in tasting the chocolate in the future.
