Hey you! Do you love chocolate? We certainly hope so, since you’re reading this! But do you really know your favourite treat? We’ve put together 6 essential numbers about chocolate to brush up your knowledge!
12 kilos per second. No, it’s not the wild promise of yet another fad diet, but the amount of chocolate eaten by the French ! Sounds like a lot? Wait for it! In total, that’s nearly 400,000 tonnes a year ! And do you know what that’s equivalent to? More than 8 times the weight of the Titanic… Gulp!
5th: that’s our place in the world ranking of the biggest chocolate eaters. With 7.3 kg per person per year. The least we can say is that we’re better at tasting chocolate than at maths: 24th in the European rankings... Not great, Jack. Luckily, we can console ourselves with our favourite bar!
7% indomitable Gauls. That’s the percentage of French people still resisting the call of chocolate. Yes indeed, 93% of French households buy chocolate, 33% of it as bars and 19% as spreads. Elementary, my dear Watson, when you know that 98% of French people enjoy this treat. In other words, apart from your allergic auntie or that old hermit in the shed at the bottom of the garden, everyone buys chocolate. Then again, it’s just so good! And ours is made with ingredients of natural origin, with no palm oil, and is made in France!
30% of the French vote dark chocolate ! That’s its share of our total chocolate consumption (and of our hearts)! Not bad, but it looks even better compared with our neighbours: only 5% of Europeans eat it. Everyone has their little favourites: Germans mostly eat their chocolate in pastries, while Belgians are crazy about pralines.
1615 – ring any bells? That year marks the start of two great love stories. The first between Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, and the second between the French and chocolate ! Anne of Austria, a great lover of “drinking” chocolate, brought it to France when she married the king. It was love at first sip, and this new drink quickly became popular. So much so that during his reign, Louis XIV had to regulate his court’s chocolate consumption, as it had become so excessive!
63% of our chocs leave their native France to be exported abroad. No surprise when you know how talented our artisan chocolatiers are – they’re in demand all over the world, especially in Japan. In the Land of the Rising Sun, they’re chocolate fanatics! Fun fact: on Valentine’s Day, women traditionally give chocolate to ALL the men in their lives. Family, friends or mere colleagues – everyone gets some! And a month later, the men who received this gift have to give chocolates in return… up to three times as many, every sweet tooth’s dream !
Bonus: 2,080 bars on a huge 5 m high by 5 m wide wall – that’s the world record for the biggest (and coolest) chocolate bar mosaic! And it was Le chocolat des Français who made it, at the 2016 Salon du Chocolat – cocoa-doodle-doo!
And there you have it: you’re now more than a chocolate lover, you’re a chocolate expert! May the bean be with you, young cocoa padawan!
