From left: Unilever Sri Lanka Brand Manager Marmite Bianca de Silva and celebrity chocolatier Gerard Mendis
Pic by Pradeep Dilrukshana


By Zahara Zuhair 
Following the world’s gastronomic trend, Unilever in partnership with Sri Lanka’s celebrity chocolatier Gerard Mendis introduced ‘Chocolate-Mite’ for the first time in Sri Lanka recently.

Speaking on ‘why marmite with chocolate’, Unilever Sri Lanka Brand Manager Marmite Bianca de Silva said, “When we look at world’s food trend there is a lot of sweet and savoury combination like salted caramel, chocolate chilli and so on. So we thought why not marry the sweetness of the chocolate with the distinctive saltiness of Marmite,” she said.

She told that they initially approached Gerard in March and it was a six-month process and they had many trials, lots of chocolates, lots of samples before the final production.

“We had to marry the right amount of sweetness, the saltiness which was a challenge,” she said. 


She said that even though they had many other products such as Astra, Knor and Flora, they thought the best with chocolate would be Marmite, which is a novel flavour.



“We really wanted the consumers to taste Marmite not limiting to sandwich and hot drinks, but to taste it with pizza and burgers and now with chocolate.”
Marmite, made from the yeast, which is most commonly used as a spread on toast or sandwiches and as a hot drink, has been in Sri Lanka for more than four decades and became part of the Unilever Sri Lanka family in 2001.

Talking at the launch, Gerard Mendis said that initially when the promoters came with the idea he was surprised and it was a challenge for him.
“We had to make a couple of samples initially just to make sure the exact percentage of Marmite is in whatever the mixture or filling. Today we have mixed white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate with Marmite filling,” he said.

He further said, “If you look at food trends today there is always a fusion. You will never find a restaurant that would purely serve Chinese or food of that nature. There is a fantasy even in naming a food or creating a menu or a dish, even when it comes to chocolates, cakes people want to see and taste something different.”

It was also noted that the chocolates will be exclusively available at Gerard Mendis.
Mendis said that the reason not to permit the chocolate outside the building is due to the temperature and the climatic conditions because he wants to promote it as a healthy food.

“It is all handmade; it’s made here itself; we have five kitchens in the behind building, all the chocolates made in house,” he said.

Also he said that they don’t use any preservatives, flavours or essence for the chocolates and very much concerned about promoting it as a healthy food since Marmite is purely vegetarian.

“Salt, pepper, lemon grass, herbs, spices actually are quite popular today. It is there in desserts and cakes. I already have developed a range with using spices and herbs,” he added.

Further, it was noted that the dark chocolate can be consumed even by the diabetic patients without any hesitant compared to white chocolate, which contains more sweetness.