Nestlé appoints chef to enhance Cailler
flavours for its Cailler chocolate brand in Switzerland.
Cailler is Nestle Switzerland's biggest selling chocolate brand, accounting for 12 per cent of the company's sales.
Management believes the move will allow the brand to grow and take advantage of a popular trend in premium chocolate.
Adria has been given the responsibility of developing new flavours for the product, which is only available in Switzerland and duty free shops.
It has been rumoured that one of the first new flavours will be jasmine tea.
Adria is a Michelin three star rated chef, who has an international reputation for imaginative dishes, and runs the famous El Bulli restaurant in Spain.
The award-winning chef has previously worked with the food industry on developing new products. In 2004 he was named by Time, the US magazine, as being one of the hundred most influential people in the world.
Nestle has also enlisted the help of French architect Jean Nouvel to design new packaging for the Cailler brand.
Swiss consumption of chocolate is on average 11.6kg a year. Nestle accounts for a large proportion of Swiss chocolate sales.
Sales in the total Swiss chocolate market for 2005 reached CHF 1.47bn (€930m), an increase of 7.5 per cent on 2004's figure, according to Chocosuisse the union of Swiss chocolate manufacturers.
Export sales were worth CHF 663m (€426m), an increase of 20.4 per cent. Meanwhile domestic sales dipped 1.3 per cent to CHF 803m (€516m).
Nestle Switzerland has sales of CHF1.49bn (€957m) and employs 2,200 people.
The company sells 77 per cent of its products through retail outlets, which it produced in seven factories in the country.
About 54 per cent of the company's products are sold in Switzerland, with the rest exported. The biggest importers are the UK with 29.7 per cent and Belgium with 25 per cent of sales.
