A new chocolatier based out of the United Kingdom is making quite the splash with its first product. Black Chocolate Co., a chocolatier that is thus far only operating on the artisan maker service Etsy, is now offering anyone with a morbid sense of humor and an overwhelming love of chocolate the chance to eat an anatomically correct human skull — luckily, it’s made out of high quality Belgian chocolate, and all the crunchy bits you’d usually expect from a human skull have been omitted. Black Chocolate Co. doesn’t yet have any other gruesome goodies on offer, but if the cocoa-constructed craniums are a success, you can bet there will be more spooky items in the near future.
Believe It or Not, Black Chocolate Co.’s Skull is Not the Creepiest Confectionery to Date
While the Kingdom of the Cocoa Skull Black Chocolate Co. is trying to build is enough to turn a few heads, so far the young company’s offerings don’t quite rate on the scale of creepy candy. Unfortunately or otherwise, some confectionery curiosities produced by another U.K. candy artist set the bar way too high — or low, depending on your perspective — for a chocolate skull to make too big of a stir.
In 2012, Annabel de Vetten produced a limited series of baby heads made out of white chocolate. They looked real enough to warrant a public outcry. Vetten, who is well known for producing severed ear and toe cookies, among other monstrosities, scoffed at the outcry. You can bet the baby head stunt won’t be her last.
So Long as Chocolate Remains Wildly Popular, Producers Will Find Ways to Stand Out
It goes without saying that none of this would be possible if chocolate wasn’t so wildly popular. It’s sort of like why you can find bacon soap, bacon coffee, and, you guessed it, bacon chocolate. A recent study from Simon Fraser University looks at the countries with the highest levels of chocolate consumption. Switzerland, clutching the top spot, eats over 22 pounds per person, per year. In total, the United States consumes more than 3 billion pounds annually. As if that weren’t enough, appetites are growing.
From 2008 to 2013, the chocolate industry in the United States grew by an estimated 3.4% per year, eclipsing $895 million in revenue. While the majority of chocolate bought was decidedly of the tamer variety, you can bet that as those numbers grow, novelty chocolate, whether fashioned to look like skulls or baby heads, will be an increasingly popular offering.
Would you buy and eat a skull made from chocolate, or any of the other strange novelty confectioneries we mentioned? Let us know in the comments below.
