Chocolate profiling - or: What do you snack on?

Let's take a test: What kind of chocolate do you like to eat? Milk chocolate or dark chocolate, bars, sticks or truffles? I prefer to eat pralines, a lot of them and preferably light or white. All right, I'm a city dweller from German-speaking Switzerland. Do you prefer to eat Munzli or similar sticks, but only from time to time? Then you probably live in the country. After all, people there sometimes need a quick supply of energy via sticks or bars, for example for the harvest or before milking. Or when "Bauer sucht Frau" is being filmed. Do you eat only dark chocolate - and regularly between 4 and 5 p.m. in good company? Then you are probably a man, come from the Welschland and earn well. Humbug? No, a new study. 

André Hefti, head of marketing at luxury brand Maison Cailler, is responsible for the chocolate oracle. He recently had the chocolate consumption of the Swiss people investigated. It came to light, for example, that more chocolate is eaten in urban areas than in the countryside and that truffles and pralines are more popular than bars and sticks. The explanation: in the city, eating chocolate is primarily about enjoyment, while in the countryside it's about supplying quick energy. I see. (I always thought farmers drank a glass of milk for that purpose?!) And the darker the chocolate consumed, the more educated and wealthy the eaters. Because dark chocolate is more valuable than milk chocolate, and you are only what you eat. In this case, status goes through the stomach. What all Swiss people have in common: With 12 kilograms of chocolate per capita and year, they are the world champions in eating chocolate.

Treacherous pleasure

The popular saying goes that you can see the character and attitude of the wearer by his or her shoes. And by a man's nose you can tell his ... - well, let's not go there. But in any case, in the future you should pay attention to how your counterpart eats which chocolate and when, especially if you want to close a deal with him. Because it doesn't get much more treacherous than that. If you want to get somewhere, always have a selection of bars, stängeli and truffles in your handbag. You can pull them out and offer them at any time in order to be able to assess your conversation partners and potential clients. In an emergency, you might even be able to convince a ticket inspector not to fine you. Corresponding chocolate kits will soon be available from Maison Cailler.

With all the opportunities that open up thanks to Schoggi, the study has confused me; I'm looking for clarification for the following circumstance: My husband likes to eat dark chocolate with orange pieces, alternatively champagne truffles. Urban or rural? Rich or poor? Educated or tubby? Too short-sighted: because HIS consumption of chocolate reveals a lot about ME. After all, my husband likes to eat these types of chocolate - but he never gets them, because I'm faster! Color, shape and additions do not matter, the main thing is that it is chocolate. As far as I'm concerned, the Schoggi-Kit diagnosis wouldn't be so clear-cut, because I'd eat the whole kit right away and leave the chocolate psychologist baffled. There's only one thing he'd know right away: she's an addict!

* Note: At the time of writing this column, about four children's bars and several rows of dark to light chocolate have disappeared from our refrigerator. Pralines, unfortunately, were already out.