Good Housekeeping magazine did a brief profile on Katrina Markoff, owner and creator of Vosges Haut-Chocolat. It’s a nice article but I think the best part is the 10% off online orders coupon code at the end. (My reviews on Vosges.)
Gourmet Magazine has a great focus on Milk Chocolate in their February 2007 issue. They’ve posted a ranked list online of the top 25 chocolates and some notes from their tasting panel. Biggest surprise on the list? Ghirardelli was ranked lower than Hershey’s. (Thanks Jessie for the heads up on that one.)
There’s big candy news brewing in Japan. Fujiya, a confectionery company that makes candy, drinks and snack cakes with the mascot “Peko-chan”, has admitted to using expired milk and perishable products in its products that were later tested to contain 10 times the acceptable levels of bacteria in them. Products have been recalled and removed from store shelves and the ubiquitous vending machines all over Asia. The scandal has grown as past cases of food poisoning from the sweets have been re-examined. The president has stepped down and there is talk that Morinaga may be poised to take a bigger stake in the company.
I’ve reviewed two of their items, the Feel Envy (part of the Feel & Platinum line that has had a limited release in the United States and Canada and more recently the High Conc. Milk Candy.
In heathlier news out of Asia, Lotte is discontinuing the use of trans fats (partially hydrogenated oils) in their confectionery. Trans fats are blamed for raising bad cholesterol leves and lowering good cholesterol. Lotte is known around the world for their Koala cream line of products. (My reviews of a couple of their products here.)
In slightly related news an alternative to partially hydrogenated oils is interesterified fat is now turning out to have similar (but not as dire) effects on cholesterol levels and may not provide the salvation that food manufacturers were looking for. I don’t know much about interesterified fat, but it appears it has another name ... biodiesel.
SUPERB
YUMMY 
TASTY 
WORTH IT 
TEMPTING 
PLEASANT 
BENIGN 
UNAPPEALING 
APPALLING 
INEDIBLE 
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Comment by
j3nnee on 1/30/07 at 5:17 pm #
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.Hey,
They were only concerned with “baked” goods.
I think it was mostly their fresh items for their specialty restaurants and bakery stores that were affected. Candy and other stuff should be ok from what I read.
Kind of sucks though. I really like Fujiya chocolate! >_<
~J~
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