White chocolate (1931-2009)

After nearly 80 years of disappointment, white chocolate has officially been disbanded following a unanimous vote at yesterday's Annual Chocolatiers' Symposium in Inverness...

It was a sombre day for confectioners across the globe who were left to wonder what might have been, but the motion to terminate white chocolate as of January 1, 2010 passed without opposition.

When white chocolate first appeared commercially in the 1940s it caused quite a stir, largely due to its significantly different colouring from regulation chocolate but in part thanks to its unique tang.

White chocolate never managed to step out of the shadow of the more successful milk chocolate.

Swiss chocolatiers confidently predicted that milk chocolate would be completely replaced by 1960 but white chocolate struggled to live up to the hype and often had to settle for minor roles as a cheesecake topping or variety pack mainstay.

By the late 1990s, white chocolate's popularity had waned to the point where a damaging stigma was attached to being seen eating it.

Newspapers ran regular reports of unprovoked attacks on white chocolate eaters and a survey in The Sun in March 2007 indicated that 65% of readers felt that white chocolate eaters shouldn't be allowed to adopt children.

By 2010 it was estimated that just 7 white chocolate bars would be sold in the calendar year, prompting the chocolate industry's leaders to pull the plug after a dispiriting 78 years.

Only nine Cadbury Dream bars were ever sold, sounding the death knell for white chocolate.

The collapse of white chocolate has left a gaping void in the industry but rumours suggest that milk and plain chocolate will be challenged by 'blue chocolate', which is under construction at Nestle.