Nestle Debuts Three New Items
e Food Co. here is introducing three new products this year: Magic, a value-added chocolate product; Nestle White Crunch bar, a white-chocolate version of the original Crunch bar; and Flipz, milk chocolate and white fudge-covered pretzels, a product created in partnership with Recot's Rold Gold pretzels.
Nestle has not released pricing and shipping information on any of these product introductions.
Yoo-Hoo Candy Bars Launched
PITTSBURGH -- Clark Bar America here and Yoo-Hoo Chocolate Beverage Co., Carlstadt, N.J., have teamed up to launch the Yoo-Hoo candy bar.
It consists of a chocolate-covered nougat that tastes like the popular chocolate beverage. Products are shipping nationally.
A standard 1.5-ounce bar carries a suggested retail price of 50 cents. Snack-size Yoo-Hoo Junior bars will be available in a 10-ounce laydown bag that will sell for about $2.49. A 29-cent 0.75-ounce trial size is also available.
Palmer Debuts Confections
READING, Pa. -- R.M. Palmer Co. here is presenting several new products for the Christmas season.
The introductions include white-covered pretzels, peanut-butter cups, caramel cups, keepsake tins filled with confections, fudge-filled teddies and teddy bear pops.Package sizes run from 4 to 12 ounces. Teddy bear pops come as 1-ounce single servings. Suggested retail prices range from 50 cents to $3.69. Items will be available for national shipment at the end of August.
Lisa's Gourmet Has Snap!
FORT LEE, N.J. -- Lisa's Gourmet Snacks here is entering the confections arena with its latest introduction, a chocolate-covered espresso coffee bean coated with a candy shell.
Snap! is available in three flavors: milk chocolate, raspberry and hazelnut. Available nationwide, the 1.5-ounce packages sell for 99 cents to $1.19.
FDA Mulls White-Chocolate Label
WASHINGTON (FNS) -- The Food and Drug Administration has proposed allowing confectioners to label white chocolate as white chocolate.
Responding to a petition from Hershey Foods U.S.A. and the Chocolate Manufacturers Association of the U.S.A., the FDA noted that since there is no federal "standard of identity" for white chocolate, candy makers by law must call this food a "white confection bar."
Ironically, the FDA conceded, most consumers refer to this product as white chocolate. The agency, indeed, granted Hershey, as well as Kraft Foods, Pillsbury and other firms, temporary permits beginning in 1992 to market the confection as white chocolate in order to gauge consumer response.
Analyzing feedback from these tests, the FDA concluded "the public has become familiar with the term 'white chocolate.' "
The FDA said white chocolate's standard of identity is virtually the same as for chocolate, except that white chocolate cannot contain "nonfat components of the ground cocoa nibs," but must contain an approved anti-oxidant.
The agency is seeking comment on this proposal by May 27, and plans to make "white chocolate" legal for sale in the United States on Jan. 1, 1998.
