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Belgian chocolate losing global appeal to French competitors, says Marcolini

14:34 07/05/2023

Belgian chocolate is becoming less and less popular on the global market, pastry chef and chocolatier Pierre Marcolini has warned.

Speaking to Bel RTL, Marcolini said that the country’s chocolate exports had been largely overtaken by France.

"When I walk around, whether in Tokyo, whether in China or elsewhere, what I see are major French brands and fewer and fewer Belgian brands", he said.

The pastry chef said that a lack of funding for training courses on chocolate-making could be behind the decline.

"When it comes to technical and vocational education, there are no subsidies, no financial means to develop that", he said. "We have to react."

Comments

WK

Perhaps it becomes a problem that more and more “Belgian” chocolatiers have been sold to foreign investors pushing for cheap ingredients such as sugar, ban alcohol but do not so much look for high quality? Might be one reason that French and Swiss chocolatiers benefit from this trend?

May 8, 2023 09:32