From pralines to multinationals. The economic history of Belgian chocolate

Maria Garrone, Hannah Pieters and Johan Swinnen

No 516208, Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven from KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven

Abstract: Belgium is associated with high-quality chocolate products and Belgian companies play an important role in cocoa processing. However, in historical perspective the global success and reputation of Belgian chocolate is a relatively recent phenomenon. Especially since the 1980s exports of “Belgian chocolates” have grown exponentially. We document the growth of the sector and discuss its determinants. Today, the very concept of “Belgian chocolate” faces challenges, as successful companies have been taken over by international investors and because its success has led others to imitate. Recently there have been attempts to protect “true” Belgian chocolate.

Keywords: Chocolate; Belgium; Economic history; Internationalization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-06
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in LICOS discussion paper series 369/2015 , pages 1-40

Downloads: (external link)
https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/346535 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: From pralines to multinationals. The economic history of Belgian chocolate (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ete:ceswps:516208

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven from KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven
Bibliographic data for series maintained by library EBIB ().