In my previous post, I have provided a revision of Bremen’s Hachez chocolate. We are unfortunately left with a feeling of high-cocoa deprivation and turn, saddened, to other options. One of these, as I have written earlier, is the brand 1888 by the Malmö chocolate factory. This is a very small company. I have now tested a little over half of their assortment and have only noted highest points, even for the Christmas-flavored kind (julchoklad med glöggkryddor). All of Malmö Chokladfabrik’s kinds have a cocoa content of 70%, are conched for a looong time and are smooth as butter. Their quality is uncannily consistent. So how does one get hold of this extraordinary stuff?
Here in Borås, there is Berg’s, of course:
This is the place where one can encounter a famous Swedish actor hesitating between one kind of Darjeeling and another, undisciplinedly licking his lips. Here one enters with the intention of buying one small bag of coffee and re-emerges with two big ones. Here, one plans to select one bar of “1888″ and, since one cannot make up one’s mind, ends up with five.
In Gothenburg, things are not that easy. Retailers usually use one of three tactics to deal with customers who ask for something they do not carry. They put up an air of superiority and claim that the product does not exist; they elaborately take an order they never plan do fulfill; or they say that the product is in fact so inferior that they banned it from their collection.
– Robin enters a fancy chocolate shop in the fanciest part of the Gothenburg city and asks for the 1888 brand of Malmö Chocladfabrik AB. The man at the counter says, no, we only have exclusive brands, go to a supermarket for that one. No explanation helps. Robin leaves the shop.
– Robin enters another fancy chocolate shop in Gothenburg, and the guy has never even heard of the brand.
This must change. No matter whether you live in Sydney, San Gimignano, Wanne-Eickel, Roscommon or Sisimiut, go to their website and bombard them with requests – they must know that they need to work on a proper distribution.
