It’s time for dark, milk and white chocolate to step aside and make room for a rosier flavor. Scientists have invented a new chocolate called “ruby,” Swiss cocoa giant Barry Callebaut said Tuesday.
Ruby chocolate features a reddish-pink hue and has a fruity, berry-like flavor. According to Barry Callebaut, the chocolate is made from the Ruby cocoa bean and has no berry flavoring or color added.
The new chocolate comes 80 years after white chocolate was introduced to the market. It also arrives amid a meltdown for the wider chocolate industry. Earlier this year, Nestle reported its slowest global sales growth in more than two decades, while Hershey said it planned to cut thousands of jobs.
Barry Callebaut CEO Antoine de Saint-Affrique told Bloomberg that the ruby chocolate arrives following about a decade of development. The chocolate appears to be targeted toward millennials in a year filled with a number of colorful food innovations aimed at younger, Instagram-obsessed shoppers.
“It’s natural, it’s colorful, it’s hedonistic, there’s an indulgence aspect to it, but it keeps the authenticity of chocolate,” Saint-Affrique told Bloomberg. “It has a nice balance that speaks a lot to millennials.”
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