Immune from the gloom? Choconomics

Do sales of chocolate rise as consumer confidence ebbs away? Market demand for chocolate appears to be growing strongly even as the credit crunch bites and prices rise on the back of increasing cocoa and oil prices.

Chocolate’s long-deserved reputation as a comfort food or snack at times of distress and worry seems to be well founded according to this excellent BBC video report from Nigel Cassidy. Goods whose demand rises during economic downturns have been coined as “counter-cyclical products”. Sean O’Grady writing in the Independent looked back to the emergence of the giant confectionery businesses during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

“During most previous slumps – and especially in the Great Depression of the 1930s – sales of chocolate have bucked the general trend. Indeed, the “Hungry Thirties” were a golden age for chocolatiers. Some famous names were invented then, including Marathon (now Snickers, 1930) and Maltesers (1936, then known as “energy balls”).”

Inexpensive treats are often the last thing we give up when our budgets are under pressure.