Recession Hits Chocolatey Goodness

We all know that a recession is not a good thing. People lose their jobs, spend less, the housing market slumps and there are many other run-on effects. It's at times like these that companies try to work out ways to cut spending. For instance, airline JAL has shaved a little bit off the plastic cutlery that it gives to passengers to save weight, and thus fuel. Also gone are in-flight magazines.

JAL of Japan, took everything it loaded from a 747 and put it on the floor of a school gym to see what it really needed. As a result it shaved a fraction of a centimetre off all its cutlery to cut weight.

"When you are talking about a jumbo jet with 400 people on board, being served two to three meals, this can save a few kilos," he said. "You work out how much fuel that consumes over a year, and you can be talking about a considerable amount of money".

As for food companies, has anyone noticed that Cadbury Kingsize blocks are smaller now? According to Fair Go on television the other night, they have gone from 250gm to 200gm. The company claims though, that the price is less to go with the smaller blocks; however, what concerns me is that (according to Fair Go again) the blocks now have 5% less cocoa than before which has been replaced with palm oil (which, being hydrogenated fat, is supposed not to be that great for you). The presenter reckoned the new block tasted more like Kremelta.

This is bad for chocolate lovers (ie, me). I thought Cadburies was the best tasting chocolate ever. Even better than expensive Swiss chocolates.

Then the other day on the Good Morning show, the cook was saying that all the icing sugar out on the market is shite now - all kind of gritty and not smooth like icing sugar should be. She said the cheap, nasty stuff was always gritty because it was made with tapioca flour instead of wheatflour, but now it seems other companies have taken up this cheaper way of producing their sugar as well.

To me this really sucks when companies start to produce products in which they replace ingredients with inferior quality ones to save money. I think it's in the tough times that people could use a nice bit of quality chocolate to comfort them.