Chocolate Market Dilemma: Data vs. Desire

Your grocery store candy aisle is actually a high-stakes battlefield of data. When Apollo Foods

bought a Swiss brand called Montreaux, they needed to know if Americans would actually buy healthy

dark chocolate. They didn't just guess, they used intense predictive modeling

called BASES. The results were wild. People claimed they wanted super bitter

dark chocolate, but the data proved we actually prefer 70% cocoa with fruit in a pouch.

It tastes good, but we can still tell ourselves it's healthy. Now the boss has

to decide whether to launch nationally and risk millions, or test slowly and let competitors

steal the idea. The chocolate business is absolutely ruthless.