Ouch
...I think I just facepalmed so hard I broke my nose.
Google has announced that the next version of its Android operating system will be codenamed "KitKat", after the iconic chocolate-covered wafer candy bar. Photo of the KitKat mascot among the Android lawn statues The Chocolate Factory needs a break from 'Jelly Bean', it seems Previously, the leading speculation among the …
"In the US, however, KitKat is manufactured and sold by the Hershey Company, a Nestlé competitor. The chocolate was originally created by Rowntree Mackintosh of York, England, which licensed the brand to Hershey in the 1970s. When Nestlé bought Rowntree in 1988, that licensing arrangement remained in place – and it is to the Hershey KitKat website that the Android site now links."
As far as free advertising goes it's win-win for them both.
"In the US, however, KitKat is manufactured and sold by the Hershey Company"
I've lived in Silicon Valley for a few years and had the misfortune of buying a KitKat there and being unaware of the Hershey connection ... until I started to eat it and discovered it tasted DISGUSTING as it was covered in Hershey's "chocolate". In contrast when I had to fly to Vancouver to get my visa renewed (has to be done outside the US) it was a delight to find that they had KitKats there imported from the UK!
Pretty much ALL American chocolate is rubbery nasty crap, but yes, Hershey's is the worst offender. Pretty much tastes & feels like a doormat soaked in motor oil.
Thank god we have a "British Shoppe" on 17-92 that has the imported good stuff.
I saw in interesting documentary on Hershey that claimed the reason why American chocolate is so nasty is historical.
In the 19th century, Europe had a Chocolate fad. East coast America picked this up as Europe was trendy to Americans who lacked a long history, and looked across the Atlantic for trends and fashions. East Coast America is fairly cool and the major cities were fairly close together, so chocolate could be made and moved quite easily,
When the frontiers started getting civilised (mainly with the railroads), high quality goods from the east coast were sent around the country because those people wanted to be seen a sophisticated, and chocolate was a small luxury that could be afforded in small quantities. Unfortunately, America is a big place, and often quite hot.
This meant that chocolate arriving on the West coast or the South was often in box cars for days in hot conditions, and quite naturally went off. The milk in the chocolate became rancid. The people receiving such luxury items did not know that it was off because they did not have anything to compare it to, only knowing that it was the trendy thing to eat and just accepted that this was how it should taste, and got used to it.
When Hershey, Pa (aka Chocolatetown, USA) was built, and they commissioned refrigerated box cars on the railways to distribute the product in ideal conditions, the outcry about the change of taste from the rest of the US was so great that Hershey changed the process to re-create the taste of gone-off chocolate that Americans now favoured. And the rest is history.
Mind you, I understand that Americans now go wild about the taste of Cadbury's chocolate (and buying the company, unfortunately), so maybe they are beginning to see sense. Having said that, I guess that people from places like Belgium and France probably throw their hands up in the air at British chocolate, which substitutes vegetable fat for milk fat.
But I prefer it that way, and that's what matters to me.
I forgot about one thing Hersey's makes I can stand. Their chocolate syrup is ok if you were raised on it. Like using to make chocolate milk or to top vanilla ice cream. Its not really chocolate and is probably still an acquired taste but knew there was something they made I could tolerate.
"In the US, however, KitKat is manufactured and sold by the Hershey Company, a Nestlé competitor. The chocolate was originally created by Rowntree Mackintosh of York, England, which licensed the brand to Hershey in the 1970s. When Nestlé bought Rowntree in 1988, that licensing arrangement remained in place – and it is to the Hershey KitKat website that the Android site now links."
Gods - those poor Yanks. That rubbish that Hershey laughingly calls "chocolate".
I'm astonished by Google on this. Since 1977, Nestle has been aggressively boycotted by action groups on milk powder. In the UK, the boycott is largely implemented by university students who ban Nestle products from sale in student run facilities and promote the issue amongst freshers. Google have willingly associated with this company, seemingly on a whim.
Most people won't care one iota about this, but some people vehemently will. "Key Lime Pie" offends no-one..
I bought into all that crap as a student. Now I've grown, I eat KitKats.
Me too. But each year, hundreds of thousands of new students pop off to UK universities where a good proportion also buy into all that crap, and Google are willingly associating their brand with them. Surely having militant students saying "down with that" to your products would be a bad thing?
My uni didn't have a Nestle ban when I went there, but each year I was there there were votes to have it banned from various places, and the vending machines with Nestle stuff in them often had stickers or posters on them to shame you if you bought Nestle.
I think it will be an excellent test of their level of conviction - it's fine to boycott a particular company's product when there are a great many easily available alternatives that are just as good but how will the poor impressionable freshers decide between trendy boycotting of baby milk producers and using their shiny new smartphone (or will they defect to iOS (there goes my student loan), WinPho (even less cool points, surely MS are satan spawn) or Blackberry (choice of the Chav)) ?
Quite. I still prefer to avoid Nestle (although I'm not absolutely strict about it). Not something I'd want to associate with if I had "don't be evil" in the company motto, though. I have a vague hope that it's going to be a deliberate name-and-shame policy and they'll change back.
I kind of think they did this just to spite everyone who assumed Key Lime Pie. Which is a pain for people who actually have source code with that moniker in it, of course. The "people don't know what key lime pie tastes like" seems rubbish, at least (lime, duh).
If Nestle aren't getting any money from it, surely one can still boycott them even if you're buying an Android device?
True it might seem annoying that they be given publicity, but one doesn't have to refer to Android Kitkat, you can just say Android, or specify Android 4.4. (This isn't quite as nuts as "sponsored by itunes festival", where there isn't any name to refer to the festival by AFAIK other than the product placement name.)
I however love chocolate and I love android products, what I love most is how random things like this confuse marketing people.
Why should everything have to make sense? Why does everything HAVE to be so formulaic? Why can't things be organic?
Why should tie up deals involve money (neither Nestle or Google paid money for this, it was born out of Android engineer's love for chocolatey wafer biscuits)
Having tasted it, I refuse to believe there's anything organic about Hershey's chocolate.
As for Nestlé - still evil....
Have you ever tasted Hershey's though? The first time a US friend gave me some, presumably expecting me to have a "wow" moment, I thought I had been given joke chocolate. Nestle is hardly the height of chocolate but in my opinion it beats the waxy texture and soapy taste of Hershey pretty much hands down.
I fully agree - Hershey chocolate is a completely different texture and I never touch it. All a matter of taste, of course, but I know someone who imports Cadbury's into North America and makes a pretty penny doing it. I can even get Nestle KitKat in some shops in Canada (at an inflated price) so there are a good few of us with the same taste!
Have you had Kvikk Lunsj from Freia (probably limited to Norway and Sweden)?
http://www.freia.no/sjokolade/freia-kvikk-lunsj/659
The Norwegians claim this is the original and no self-respecting Norwegian would dare go to mountains without a bar in their pack. I have to say Freia is nice chocolate and probably beats out the Nestle version. Maybe this new version of Android can be called Kvikk Lunsj in Norway?