Chocolate Around the World

1. Cote d’Ivoire (also known as The Ivory Coast) is the world’s largest producer of cacao, growing 40% of the world’s supply.
2. When there is a shortage - or a surplus - of cacao production in the country, it has a serious impact on the price of chocolate worldwide!
3. Shockingly, the majority of workers on chocolate farms are children, some of whom have even been sold into slavery. Many are treated poorly, and generally don’t ever get to taste the food they assist in producing. However, chocolate manufactureres today are increasingly concerned with the well-being of all workers in the production chain, and have taken steps to ensure a fairer distribution of wealth.
4. In a survey, more than half of Americans listed chocolate as their favourite flavour.
5. In the United States, milk chocolate only has to contain around ten per cent actual chocolate.
6. The Swiss eat the most chocolate per capita, consuming ten kilograms each per year. Inhabitants of the United States by comparison eat around half that amount.
7. You won’t find chocolate in a blue wrapper in China, as the colour is commonly associated with death!
8. In some regions of Mexico, chocolate is actually used as a medicine, both as a cure (it can reduce some effects of bronchitis) and a preventative (warding off scorpion stings).
9. Some parts of Latin America used cacao beans as currency well into the 19th century.
10. Montezuma of the Aztec Empire consumed around fifty cups of chocolate every single day.