Different Brands, Same Chocolate.

Can you see the difference? 

Notice anything about the two chocolate bars in the picture on the left?  Do they look alike? The layout on the package, the images, the colour scheme...all very similar.

I purchased these chocolate bars at different times.  One, the Hageland, was tucked away in my cupboard for a few months until I recently came across the Cachet chocolate bar.  I noticed right away that the packaging of the two bars were very similar.  Then I compared them side-by-side.  And I compared the ingredients list and they too are the same (see below for the ingredients lists).  One of the few differences is that Cachet's label was written for the Canadian market and Hageland's was written for the American market (i.e. the word 'flavor' vs 'flavour').

Everything about these two chocolate bars is the same.  The inner foil wrap is the same and so is the chocolate bar mold.  Even the taste is the same.  So my conclusion?  It is the SAME CHOCOLATE sold under different brand names and intended for different markets (i.e. the Canadian vs U.S. market in this case).  The only strange thing is that the description written on the back of the package (about Uganda being the source of the forastero cocoa beans used) is exactly the same.  This indicates to me the same marketing team, which may also mean the same company who made the packaging?  

So what I found on the Internet is that the Hageland trademark is owned by Kim's Chocolates, who also own's the Cachet brand. Although Hageland has a different website entirely and there seems to be no tie to Cachet or Kim's on the Hageland website, I found the name of the trademark owner on Justia.com (http://trademarks.justia.com/776/97/hageland-77697468.html)  that has listings of trademark owners.  I'm not sure why Kim's Chocolates decided to go with a name other than Cachet in the American market.  Cachet is a perfectly good name, but perhaps us Canadians are more used to the pronunciation of a name with a French origin (since a good number of us are part-French Canadian).  Perhaps in the U.S., more often than not it would be pronounced as "catch-it".  It is just funny because our two countries are so close together and there is so much exposure of products from the U.S. to Canada (not as often the other way around), so why not just choose one name and promote the heck out of it here in North America?

The more chocolate that I buy, especially when I am border-crossing to the U.S. (which I have done a lot of in past years), the more I have been finding the same chocolate packaged in different wrappers. Unlike in this case, different companies are promoting the exact same chocolate bars under their own brands, and purchasing the chocolate from the same chocolate manufacturer in Europe - who is kind enough to place each company's outer label on the chocolate bars.   



On the Left: the Hageland Chocolate Bar. 
On the Right: the Cachet Chocolate Bar.

 I am not sure if I feel that this is wrong or right.  Having a degree or two in business studies, I can easily see the business benefits for both the manufacturer and the company promoting the product under their own name. For the manufacturer, it is a great way to get their product on store shelves worldwide, while not having to incur the cross-country/continent expansion costs, develop contacts, worry about labelling requirements, etc. For the company who is marketing it under their own brand, they benefit from not learning the manufacturing process or buying equipment to get that job done.  

My only issue is when I see the same chocolate bars in the same store.  I have seen this once before, where both brands were on display on the same wall, with the exact same line-up of flavours: espresso, mint, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, extra dark chocolate, etc. So I bought a bunch of bars, only to get home and realize as I read the ingredients and pulled off the outer wrap, that they were the exact same chocolate bars.  I think this was an accident and the actual retail-owner had not even realized it. One brand was intended for the U.S. market, and technically should not have been sold in that store. But I, as a consumer, felt like I was somehow fooled. One of the brands, which is a favourite of mine (which is why I am not naming names), well I had always thought they made the chocolate themselves, or at least that it was exclusive to them.  So I was surprised to learn that they were simply outsourcing this to a manufacturer who was also selling the same chocolate bars to other companies. But I have since forgiven them, and have realized that their goal is not to make the chocolate themselves, but instead to promote ethical practices in the world of chocolate.

So all that said, I just thought this was a very interesting topic to bring up.  The next time you open the wrapper of a chocolate bar you have never tried before, and yet it seems oddly familiar to you, keep in mind that you may have actually tasted it before, only under a different brand name. 

As for taste of the Uganda bar by both Cachet and Hageland, it is good.  There is low acidity, which I think might be needed with an 80% since it is so bitter (I am still just getting used to my week of only eating +80% dark chocolate, so low acidity is good). There is also no gross artificial flavour, thanks to Kim's Chocolates for using natural vanilla in their recipe.

If you have found any two chocolate bars that are the same, but sold under a different brand, please feel free to discuss it in the Comments below!

Please stay tuned for a crunchy truffle recipe using these Hageland & Cachet chocolate bars as part of my `month unsweetened` and my Diaries of a Girl Gone Dark and Bitter. I will post it in the next few days.

Here are the details on the two chocolate "brands" that I tasted today:

Hageland Limited Selection "Uganda" 80% Dark Chocolate forastero, 100 g (3.5oz)
http://www.hageland-chocolate.com/
Made in Belgium
Imported by: SCO KOLADEN, LLC (Hayward, CA, USA)
Ingredients: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla (nat. flavor). Chocolate: cocoa solids min. 80%.  May contain traces of tree nuts, peanuts, soybeans, eggs, milk and wheat.

CACHET Premium Belgian Chocolate, Limited Origin Selection "Uganda" 8-% Dark Chocolate, 100 g (3.5 oz)
Imported by: Premier Brands (Toronto, ON, Canada)
Made in Belgium by Kim's Chocolates
Ingredients: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla (nat. flavour). Chocolate: cocoa solids min. 80%. May contain traces of nuts, peanuts, soybeans, eggs, milk and gluten.