Leading chocolate brands risk degrading the category by value engineering their products to mitigate the impact of inflated cocoa costs, one founder has warned.
Andrew Newlands, founder of premium chocolate brand Monty Bojangles, told The Grocer chocolate prices had historically been “too cheap”, which had compounded the pressure felt by manufacturers following last year’s short cocoa crop.
“When I see chocolate being sold at low prices, it annoys me,” said Newlands.
“It doesn’t help us at all as an industry to recognise that what we sell is a wonderfully complex, very sophisticated and an incredibly premium product.”
Chocolate “should be something… which is precious” and “cherished”, said Newlands.
Instead, “a chocolate bar will go up 50p and everyone will throw their hands up in the air, like it’s the end of the world”.
“Genuinely, the experience is what matters here, not the 50p. And I’m not being tone deaf about inflation, I acknowledge it’s challenging, but equally, if we weren’t trying to drive the price down so much, it wouldn’t be so heinous.”
Rather than value engineering chocolate to keep prices low, Newlands “would like to see the market take a sensible step in upping the retail price, because it is it adequately reflects the truth of what we are making”.
Monty Bojangles’ new look
It comes as Monty Bojangles has unveiled a “bold” redesign, which will first roll out across its range from June, starting with Fantastical Truffles and Chocolatey Truffles (rsp: £4.50/135g), which are listed in Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose.
Monty Bojangles had appealed to “an exclusively older demographic” 10 years ago, “but we’ve acquired and brought new people into the fold”, said Newlands.
To resonate with the brand’s “new target consumer, which stretches to 25 to 44-year-olds” Monty Bojangles “needed to speak a slightly different language and communicate visually in a slightly different way”, he added.
The brand has unveiled an updated “spirit cat” logo, which pays homage to Newlands’ late pet, after which Monty Bojangles was named.
The cat is adorned with five emblems, each of which represents one of Monty Bojangles’ five pillars, “wonder, magnificent, curious, adventurous and playful”.
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