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Swiss innovators create pink chocolate and blue wine

The Local
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Swiss innovators create pink chocolate and blue wine
Ruby chocolate and the ruby bean it derives from. Photo: Barry Callebaut

Zurich-based world-leading confectionery company Barry Callebaut has created a pink-hued chocolate that it claims is the first new natural chocolate colour since the white variety was introduced 80 years ago.

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Called ‘ruby’ chocolate, it is made from the ruby cocoa bean, which gives it a natural pinkish colour and a “fresh berry fruitiness,” the company said in a statement
 
The new chocolate is a result of more than a decade’s research and development on the ruby bean, Callebaut’s Chief Innovation & Quality Officer Peter Boone told the press when the product was revealed at a launch event in Shanghai on Wednesday. 
 
However you can’t pick some up in the shops just yet – it will take at least six months before consumers will see ruby chocolate sitting alongside dark, milk and white on the supermarket shelves. 
 
The pink chocolate joins a growing global trend for unusually coloured foods including ‘rainbow’ bagels and purple cauliflower.
 
It’s a trend that another Swiss-based producer is joining by producing blue wine.
 
Start-up Geneva Blue launched its blue wine in the city of Calvin at the beginning of July, its co-founders told La Tribune de Geneve last week. 
 
Photo: Geneva Blue
 
“We wanted above all to give a new image to wine, which is considered by young people as old-fashioned,” Geneva Blue’s Thomas Heinimann told the paper.
 
Intended to mimic the blue of Lake Geneva, the wine is made from a blend of white grape varieties and derives its blue colour from the natural pigments present in grape skins plus the addition of colour stabilizer E-133. 
 
“The wine is naturally blue. All we do is intensify the colour,” said Heinimann.
 
The company wanted to use local grapes, but producers weren’t keen on the idea, so the wine is made from grapes imported from Spain.
 
So far, private customers have warmed to the idea but bars and restaurants are more “reticent,” Heinimann said. 
 
 

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