It is often said that nine out of ten people love chocolate and that the tenth person is a liar. As in other gourmet sectors in Israel, so chocolate has become more refined in recent years. Since the Max Brenner brand penetrated the Israeli market in the nineties, introducing the concept of handmade chocolates, the floodgates have opened and rivers of chocolate have flowed, which today have filled the country with aesthetic creations waiting to explode onto the taste buds.
CEO and owner of Trinidad chocolatier Amatzia Ben-Eliezer estimates that Israel's chocolate market is worth about NIS 1.5 billion a year with the gourmet niche amounting to between NIS 15-20 million. "There is a demand for dark and plain chocolate with between 40%-90% cocoa," he observes.
It is not only chocolate freaks who are prepared to pay for delicious and sweet chocolates. A box of chocolates has become a particularly popular gift, mainly during the festivals both in the institutional and private market. "Our factory works around the clock to keep pace with orders," says chocolatier Roy Gershon, owner of Roy Chocolate, which has six outlets around the country.
"Chocolate is about taste and not trends," insists the veteran chocolate maker Michael Blog of Mishi Chocolate Boutique in Kiryat Tivon near Haifa. "It's absolutely fine to love pure milk chocolate and to go all the way with it. You don't have to like a particular seasoning with your entrecote and it's exactly the same with chocolate."
Gershon agrees that choosing a praline depends on personal taste alone and stresses that there are "no small number of fans of more adventurous fillings." As in the ice cream sector, chocolate stores stock many and different fashionable flavors for daring Israelis, that probably cannot be found in stores for chocolate connoisseurs in Europe. For example Roy Chocolate is currently offering pralines filled with chai masala, and mint cream with lemon peel, and among Trinidad's 50 kinds of pralines there is chili filled with jasmine or ginger, and passaflora pralines with white chocolate. The flavors change according to the crazes of the chocolatier.
"The Israeli consumer," says Gershon, "is open to new and unexpected flavors and so we develop our own style. They love to surprise people with original chocolates such as a kilogram block with a personalized message on it."
Israel's chocolatiers offer their merchandize throughout the country. Alongside the rigorous creations of Max Brenner are the following boutiques:
- Ruti Chocolates in Ramat Hasharon offers a range of aesthetic products such as pralines with a selection of fillings and interesting combinations including surprising colors all handmade by chocolatier Ruti Melamed.
- Gabi Hofstetter, the artist behind the chocolates of the "Gabrielle" brand and Sweet'n Karem in Jerusalem.
- The Shocolade stores in Rosh Ha'ayin and Ra'anana sell the handmade chocolate products of Yael Millstein: chocolate drinks, personal chocolates on a stick, 24 types of praline and much more.
- Exquisite chocolates which are kosher lemehadrin are produced by Aliza Siekierski at the Modiin chocolatier under the brand name O Chocolat.
- Galita at Kibbutz Degania B's "chocolate ranch" presents handmade chocolate's from Galit Alpert.
As in the western countries where this sweet sin has pride of place, a box of exquisite pralines is a highly coveted gift, which can also be personalized by printing on the chocolate itself. The gift can also be made appropriate for the season by combining it with apple or honey, designing pralines with the symbols of the festival or other relevant inscriptions. Another integral part of the present is the colorful designed packaging in a cardboard or metal box.
The price depends on the quantity and size of both the product and the packaging: for example at Roy's honeycombs from chocolate cost about NIS 30, honey liquor chocolate in a designer bottle costs NIS 60 and honey cake packages go for NIS 25-50 and more.
Max Brenner's gift lines for the festival include praline packages from NIS 44 (for nine units) and NIS 160 (for 36 units) as well as designer metal boxes that retail for between NIS 110 up to NIS 350.
The website Chocolove offers deliveries of handmade chocolates from Israel's best chocolatiers. The packages are custom designed and include (while protecting the freshness) elaborate decorations which enhance the local chocolate produce (from NIS 120).
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 28, 2008
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