- The Plate
Why We Want Chocolate for Valentine’s Day
You’ve got your Sweethearts, your SweeTarts, and your dozen red roses. But I’m willing to wager that most lovers must arrive bearing chocolate on Feb. 14, or be turned away at the door.
Fair trade, dark, white, kosher or straight up Hershey’s milk, Americans and Europeans consume most of the world’s chocolate. Nearly 9 in 10 U.S. adults say they buy chocolate, and seasonal retail sales of chocolate increase 6.1 percent from 2011-2013 over previous years, according to market researchers over at Mintel. Cacao beans are primarily grown in Africa, and the finished product is spreading to new markets like China (Somehow the concerns of how chocolate is sourced or whether it is really good for us tend to take a