It's not just the no-foam, half-caff, soy latte, the wheat-crust, extra-cheese pizza or the running shoes with the hand-picked stripes anymore. Now even chocolate can say something about the person buying it.
Nestle is expected to announce Thursday its launch of a personalized chocolate business through its premium, Maison Cailler brand. It will start as a pilot program in the company's native Switzerland, where customers can buy chocolate samples online, fill out a short questionnaire about each piece and be given a "chocolate profile."
The profiles, Nestle said, will reflect a preference for one of five kinds of its chocolate, such as milk or dark, or certain flavors like vanilla or nut. Each of the five has its own name like "ChocoArty," for dark chocolate lovers, and lists personality traits, like "adept in elegance and culture."
Bob Boutin of Knechtel, a Skokie-based food, confectionary and pharmaceutical consulting firm, said that with chocolate and other confectionary prices on the rise, manufacturers are feeling pressure to give consumers more for their money.
Nestle said the sample is priced at about $20, and a personalized box of 16 pralines would cost nearly $28.
In this trend, Nestle follows Starbucks, Nike and Coca-Cola in offering personalized products. Nestle will use the profiles to create personalized boxes of chocolates for customers and their friends or loved ones, and follow up with offers around certain holidays.
"Anything that involves customization or personalization is totally hot today, in chocolate or another industry," said Valerie Beck, founder and president of Chicago Chocolate Tours. "We love whatever we can do to really make something our own."
But Stacy DeBroff, CEO of Mom Central Consulting, said the Nestle program seems behind the curve. She noted companies like Cherry Hill, N.J.-based Chocomize allow customers to make their own candy bars, selecting the chocolate and toppings, which include nuts, dried fruits, herbs and even spices, for about $8 per bar, before shipping.
She added that paying for the samples might also create a hurdle for some consumers. "They're not only asking you to sign up but to pay to enter," she said. "I'm going to pay to tell you what my chocolate preferences are so that until I unsubscribe, I'm going to get pitched?"
Laurent Freixe, head of Nestle's Zone Europe, said while premium chocolate has been growing, the company has noticed that customers "do not necessarily want to buy, to eat the same things as their neighbor, and people have more and more personalized expectations."
Nestle plans to invite Maison Cailler customers to share their chocolate profiles on Facebook, underscoring the importance of social media and the growing number of consumers making purchases online. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of confectionary products and chewing gum rose 5.2 percent for the year ended in September, on top of relatively high increases for each year since 2007.
However, chocolate sales grew unabated during the recession and are expected to reach $18.1 billion in the U.S. in 2011, up 14 percent from $15.8 billion in 2006, according to Euromonitor.
Katrina Markoff, founder and CEO of Chicago-based Vosges Haut Chocolat, isn't a fan of the personalization trend in chocolates.
"I don't know that they would be so successful." Markoff said. She said her customers "want to be surprised" by her creations and in many cases "don't know what they want." Vosges, which expects to have sales of $25 million to $30 million this year, makes candies with vegan, organic and gluten-free chocolates and uses exotic flavors like Gruyere cheese and wasabi.
