Tea with chilli - Germany latches on to the custom-made food trend

Feb 25, 2010, 6:23 GMT

Berlin - Chocolate with ginger or pepper, brown bread with courgette or chick pea: whether it is coffee, muesli, bread, fruit juice or tea, custom-blended foods are proving very popular, especially with younger age groups.

Individually designed food products can even be ordered online. The pioneers in this form of shopping in Germany were three students from the town of Passau, who started offering blended-to-order muesli three years ago.

But plenty of others have jumped on the bandwagon as well.

While trying to think of a good birthday present Franz Duge had an idea: a bar of chocolate like no other in the world.

Together with his friend Michael Bruck, he founded the chocolate bar shipping company chocri.de in Berlin. Their concept is to offer customers three types of chocolate - milk, bitter and white - made from organic milk that can be combined with 80 different ingredients.

There are lots of possible combinations such as chocolate with aniseed or cinnamon cornflakes. 'Our range can cater to every taste. It's not about buying just any product, it's about having an experience,' says 23-year-old Bruck.

A 100 gram custom-designed chocolate bar costs 1.90 euros, or 2.50 dollars, plus post and packaging.

'In the beginning we said if we sell 500 bars a month we would be happy. Now we sell at least 500 bars every morning.'

Bruck and Duge employ 25 people and had sales of 1 million euros last year. Their unique blends of chocolate are now available in the US and the pair are planning to expand into Britain and France. Most of their customers are females aged between 19 and 39 years.

However, the undisputed leaders in custom foods in Germany are Max Wittrock and his two partners in Passau with their custom order muesli.

'We had the inspiration for mymuesli.de in 2005,' says the 27- year-old. But the business did not get up and running until two years later.

Now, the three students employ 90 people and have opened a factory near Basel in Switzerland. The growth in eating organic food and the internet's development helped their business take off.

The basic idea of a modular system that allows raw materials to be combined in different variations is not new. Mass customization is a term long familiar in the world of businesses, such as Nike and Puma.

For years the sports shoe makers have been allowing customers to design and buy their products over the internet. Professor Frank Piller of the University of Aachen estimates there are about 600 companies offering mass customized products in Germany.

Sascha Fiene and his company candymix, however, are bucking that trend. Fiene offers his customers bags that contain only red, white or another colour jelly baby. 'I had the idea two and a half years ago when I watched a report about mymuesli.de on TV,' says Fiene.

Fiene places wholesale orders for jelly babies with manufacturer Haribo and then sorts the different colours by hand. Haribo had already thought of the concept and had it tested but decided it was not practical for technical reasons. 'Market research also revealed that our jelly baby colour mixtures are the most popular variety,' says Haribo spokesman Marco Alfter.