When the young Willy Wonka wraps his first chocolate praline out of golden aluminum foil and lets it disappear past the metal braces in his mouth, it changes his life forever: He feverishly tests one candy after the other, notes his taste impressions and later opens up as an adult against the wish his father's dentist ran a chocolate factory.

Johanna Christner

Editor in the section “Germany and the World”.

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Similar to the protagonist from the film “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, it seems that many people in Germany - a chocolate country with a per capita consumption of around nine kilograms per year, which corresponds to 90 hundred gram bars. On the ranking list of chocolate aficionados, Germany shares the top positions with Switzerland and Austria.

50 years ago, people ate an average of around 50 bars a year in this country.

For the Christmas season in 2021 alone, the German confectionery industry produced around 160 million chocolate Santa Clauses, five percent more than last year.

103 million of them stayed in the country.

This is borne out by figures from the Federation of the German Confectionery Industry.

Chocolate bunnies are also happily taken into care: 214 million bunnies were produced in Germany this year, but half of them said goodbye to export.

And it's not just the chocolate: The Federal Statistical Office published figures on gingerbread consumption in 2020 on Friday. According to this, 86,500 tons of gingerbread were produced, 100 tons more than in 2019 - although many Christmas markets had been canceled.

Can these numbers be explained by corona frustration and cravings in the home office? Not necessarily, the numbers have been at a high level for years. The saying “Chocolate makes you happy” should be consumed with caution anyway. The “happiness hormone” serotonin, which is also prescribed in its pure form against depression, often belongs to the narrative of the “happiness maker chocolate”. Although cocoa does not contain it, it does contain tryptophan. And if the amino acid is broken down in the body, serotonin is actually produced. However, a breakfast egg, for example, contains far more tryptophan - and no one has ever given the egg the honorary title of "happiness maker" for it.

The passion for chocolate also has sides that could easily spoil the taste.

For example, because many cocoa farmers in the main producing countries, Ivory Coast and Ghana, have to live below the globally defined poverty line and their work also suffers from climatic extremes such as periods of drought, heavy rain and flooding.

Since many cocoa trees no longer bear enough fruit, the farmers open up new cultivation areas through illegal slash and burn.

Large parts of the original forests in West Africa have already been lost, which has an impact on biodiversity and the climate crisis - a vicious circle.

Nevertheless, we don't have to do without.

Some manufacturers now pay attention to organic cultivation and fair trade.

A clear conscience is at least as good as a chocolate bar.