Meiji Holdings Co., Japan's biggest chocolate maker, will buy more cocoa beans from Latin America to increase output of premium products after selling twice as much of its upscale THE Chocolate brand as it initially expected.
Sales of THE Chocolate will rise as high as 120 million units by 2020, after reaching 30 million in the past year as Japanese adults step up purchases of higher-value luxuries such as craft chocolate, coffee and wine, Masahiro Sato, manager of Meiji's confectionery sales division, said Friday in an interview in Tokyo.
The brand, which was introduced in September 2016 as bean-to-bar craft chocolate, is made from cocoa beans from Brazil, Dominica and Venezuela. It's priced at ¥237 for a 50-gram bar.