Angus Kennedy talks to Joie Chen

Joie Chen: You are the man behind one of the most terrifying predictions I have heard in some time. And what is that?

Angus Kennedy: This is a prediction that the world will run out of chocolate by 2020.

There is some validity to this notion that we may be running out of cocoa?  Why?

Well, the world isn't going to run out of cocoa. But if you look at the global markets — for example, Nigeria, South Africa, Mexico, India and particularly China as well — they are eating a lot less chocolate than we are at the moment over in the U.S. and Europe. And if they all act anything like what we do over here, considering their population sizes, then the consumption is going to go up hugely, 14 percent, 15 percent. Then if you look at the amount of cocoa being produced, which is fairly level — there's not much more, there's not much less — and all the threats, then a shortage is … a potential problem.

Now you say that there is some exaggeration that the media might be prone to when talking about the death of chocolate. You are seeing symptoms?

You are, yes.

What's happening out there? What's happening to my chocolate?

If you go into a shop — it's called shrinkflation, and it's known well — you go in there, and you'll either find your product bars suddenly got smaller, and no one's told you, have they? You discover it. Or you'll find those inclusions, which is, like, almonds, there's nougat, those bits and pieces. It's not chocolate, though, is it? Because the chocolate is the expensive bit. The cheapest bit is the sugar. So you are finding that generally, as a trend, chocolate's getting sweeter, with more bits in it, and it's getting smaller. 

It's kind of yucky.

Yeah, yeah.

For a chocolate connoisseur.

Yeah, it doesn't have so much cocoa butter. So the cocoa butter is what makes chocolate chocolate. It's like the grape of Champagne. 

So when I go to the store and I see on the rack, I look at all my favorite chocolates but now all of a sudden, one of them is being advertised as featuring air, air bubbles in my chocolate.

Yeah, and it's less calories. No, it's not. It's less chocolate. There's ways in which the industries is promoting the fact that it's good that you've got a smaller bar. One is the fact that it's less calories.

That's spin. Less calories.

No, it's not. It's less chocolate. Higher in antioxidants because it's got almonds and walnuts. No, it's not. It's less chocolate. And they'll just keep going. They'll keep going. They'll try on and on and on

The quality of the chocolate that remains is often — you called it sludge.

I've tried a lot of chocolate, so I've been around the world, and you try different types of strain of cocoa bean from Jamaica, from Madagascar, from Cameroon, and it's amazing. I think the big conglomerates are trying to make it a globalized taste, which is sweet so we'll all accept that. It's very cheap. We'll make lots of profit. But of course, you know, they have to make money, which is fair enough. But chocolate can taste amazing. And it doesn't have to, you know, taste like what people think it does taste like.

Like gunk?

Yeah, a lot of the time, yeah, exactly.

But the latest reports that we're seeing in the news are that chocolate — not only dark chocolate but all chocolate — is supposed to be healthy?

Was that the latest one? Oh, I think I've read about 500 of those. I mean, over 25 years, I've read chocolate is good for you, the latest, about, I don't know, hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of times. Chocolate's good for your skin, good for antioxidants. It's good for this. It's good for — oh, hang on, recent one, blood flow, blood flow. Think about Casanova. He used to take it. Blood flow, right. So it's all that story — chocolate and virility and you know. 

Well, I should point out that you have quite a few children.

Yeah. I like Champagne. So it kind of works. 

Chocolate and champagne, and the result is?

Five children. I know. But then at least we can feed them with something, you know? But no, going back to your point about this sort of chocolate is good for you.  Well, you know, how many times have we heard, you know, big industries that have put in a lot of money into either such and such reports to make, let's say, for example, vegetables. Have you read something in the paper recently, broccoli's good for you? No, never, because they don't have any money.

So that's wrong. Approximately 365 antioxidants that exist. The human body will absorb three. So when it says chocolate's full of antioxidants, it's pointless because actually you could just have a walnut or, you know, something else, which is very high in antioxidants, and then you don't get the sugar and the fat.

Who eats the most chocolate in the world?

Swiss, Germans, British — they would argue with each other, saying, "No, we eat the most." Actually, American people eat about 5 1/2 kilograms, so they're actually quite conservative about their chocolate eating.

We're not eating as much chocolate as we should?

No. Half the amount of the British. So you're actually being really good about it. 

And now it's the rest of the world moving in.

Yes, that's what's happening. India's massive, China, very exciting. That's where the kind of the attention of the corporates are looking at, the global companies saying, "Wow, look at China. Look at South Africa, Nigeria," if that's where they're really looking. They're not really looking at us, not anymore. We're not much use. If you look at the size of the population in China and India, it's enormous — enormous market.

And all the people are eating chocolate.

No, they eat 1 gram a year or something in China.

So it's the potential?

It's enormous, enormous. It's far bigger, and if you look at the size of population of little England, a tiny little 70 million — "Oh, this looks quite good. Hmm, 1.3 billion. Hmm, that'll do, and they only eat 1 gram. Let's do that." That's why they don't care if they reduce the size of our products. This is just too big, this market. So that's what's really going on.

When I go to the store and I see "candy bar," what does that mean? It's not chocolate?

No, if someone says "candy bar" and it looks like a chocolate bar, it means legally, they're not allowed to say it's a chocolate bar because it's got no cocoa butter in it. So they have to call it a candy because it's not chocolate. It's a legal thing. 

People put an awful lot of odd things into their chocolate. I'm seeing more things now like peppers or tea, as you mentioned, but also bugs.

Oh, yeah. I mean it's anything that creates a reaction is good for a business. I know of a particular company in Austria and they'll put in, like, fish, bits of pig, and —

Bits of pig?

Well, the guy used to have a pig farm, so he used to feed them bits of chocolate, but now he puts the pigs in the chocolate, so it's a kind of weird story. But that's just an example of some of the things he puts in it. He has fish flavor, but some of the more interesting ones are ants, scorpions. Insects is getting quite big. Top London restaurants are really into insects.

It's actually a very sensible way of eating protein, so there's nothing inherently wrong with eating insects. It's just kind of — you know. I've tried them, actually, chocolate covered locusts, and I've even made them. I've made them myself. So you get these locusts. You can buy them frozen. You fry 'em up in caramel, and then you coat them in chocolate.

This interview has been edited and condensed.