Chocolate makers woo mature consumers

Candy ain't kid stuff anymore.

Chocolate, in particular, has lost its innocence. No longer is "chocolatey goodness" enough.

Now, candy wrappers woo adults with sexy promises: "Decadent … Sinful … Moments of timeless pleasure."

At the recent All Candy Expo in Chicago, martini glasses and fountains overflowed with premium chocolate in kid-repellant flavors.

Candy makers are realizing that many people who buy chocolate are not kids, but adults -- 70 percent of whom are women, many in the prized 18 to 45 age demographic.

Some new chocolates, containing liqueurs such as Courvoisier and grappa, are illegal for anyone under 21. PMS Chocolate -- motto: "That time? Your chocolate" -- comes infused with tangy ginger and wasabi.

In step with the marketing, confectioners are wooing adults by making chocolate richer, darker and better.

Like wine, cocoa is now identified from specific regions, primarily West African nations like Ghana, and South American tropical locales like Ecuador.

The beans used are no longer the cheap and common Forestero bean, but the sought-after Criollo or Trinitario breeds.

Premium chocolate is being imported from Old World Europeans and reinvented by new breed American artisans. The wife of Amour Chocolates founder Doug Swanson, for instance, didn't like the gooey liquid that squirts out from the inside of cordials, so she invented her own aperitifs in which flavors like red chile are mixed right into the chocolate.

Big name manufacturers like Dove are competing to see who can make a bar with the highest percentage of cacao, the bean which produces cocoa, with some hitting a savory 99 percent. Milk chocolate, by the way, weighs in at around 50 percent.

What's happening to chocolate, in the eyes of Neil Turpin, general manager of Green & Black's USA, is the same thing Starbucks did with coffee: raise the standard of taste and, along with it, what people are willing to pay.

"There's a trading up going on now in chocolate the way there has been for wine and coffee in the past 20 years," he said. "It's about indulgence for me as an adult."

As international flavors influence cuisine, exotic flavors make eating chocolate adventurous while it remains comforting.

"I think the focus is turning on to taste and education," Chocolatier Magazine editor Joan Steuer said. "People are moving from consumer to connoisseur."

In response, premium chocolate makers are appealing to a broader market, while mass producers are attracting choosier chocoholics.

Godiva has come out with a new "Chocoiste" line of purse-portable bars and tins, and Mars now offers dark chocolate versions of such classics as M&Ms and Milky Way. There's even a mint spin on Three Musketeers, and Skittles, for the first time, come in chocolate.

While sales of chocolate have been growing at 3 percent to 4 percent annually, marketresearch.com says sales of premium chocolate have increased 16 percent per year, and organic chocolate sales are shooting up 30 percent each year.

To capitalize on studies showing the heart-health benefits of chocolate's flavonoids, candy makers are trying to attract adults by combining taste with nutrition.

Now products tout all-natural, trans-fat free and cholesterol free on their labels. Even -- say it ain't so -- sugar free!

The Terra Nostra organic chocolate bar is actually made with flax seed (for "all the ohhhhmega goodness you can handle").

Chocolatiers aren't the only candy makers going after adults. Mint makers, targeting adult women with "Sex & the City" style packaging, saw business boom last year as sales grew 22 percent.

David Sapers, owner of Sugar Heaven, a high-end candy store based in Boston, bought a shipment of Oral Fixation mints at the candy expo without even tasting them. He liked the way they were packaged -- in sleek tins with names like "Flirt" and "Hottie," with flavors of champagne and mojito mint.

"We're looking for a more funky, aggressive, sexy look," he said. "People point it out to their friends and buy it just for fun."

As if to prove his point, Little i, a competing mint, comes in tins that have a mirror to check your look while out on the town, and can double as a business card holder.

"We think all candy's for adults," Sapers said with a smile. "Candy's not for kids, because they have no money."