Chocolate is one of the world’s best comfort foods. And now the world’s largest bulk chocolate maker might be able to bring investors some relief from the market blues, says Adam Lass. Barry Callebaut AG (SWF:BARN) is planning to start producing in Brazil, where it hopes to tap into a big – and rapidly growing – South American market.

If you haven’t got the means to invest in a European stocks, Americans can play this sweet deal with the local pink sheet offering – Barry Callebaut AG R (PINK:BYCBF).

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I just can’t take it any more.

I have been writing about this collapse in one column or another for years now. At first it was warnings about our profligate ways. Then it was the first few teasing leading indicators.

And for the last year? Nothing but nonstop guts and gore. An endless cadence of corporate losses… falling share prices… bank failures… closing stores… shrinking GDP… failing employment…

Quite frankly, it’s getting on my nerves.

Cold Comfort

Of course, the shorter days and colder weather don’t help much either. The only “top down” driving I can look forward to for the next few months will be on the tractor -clearing snow off a quarter mile of private road.

It’s time for a change of pace.

My wife has a cure for times like these. On a high shelf in the kitchen, far beyond the reach of our children’s sticky little fingers, she keeps a private stash. Too little sunlight, frightening times and too many bills can’t just beat down the buzz… of high-grade Swiss chocolate.

So today, I am going to steal a page out her book.

Time to Change Our Outlook

I am only going to mention “stagnating sales” once more. Because I have uncovered a business that has found a delightful way around the whole issue. In fact, even their product is pleasant. Even tasteful, as it were.

The folks who run the world’s largest bulk chocolate maker, Barry Callebaut AG (SWF:BARN), are also tired of Europe’s stagnating chocolate sales. But rather than wallow in a mawkish funk, they are looking to start up production somehow, someway in Brazil.

Seems that Latin America was the one market they had not thoroughly penetrated. And Brazilians in particular are devils for the stuff lately. Just as consumption in Europe is falling off, Brazilians are craving 15% more (at least as of 2007, anyway, which is the most up-to-date info available from the Brazilian Association of Cacao, Chocolates, Candies and Byproducts Industries).

The Old “Can-Do”

In times like these, you just have to love Barry Callebaut AG CEO Patrick De Maeseneire’s “can do” attitude. When grilled by a reporter from Bloomberg, he responded with perfect self-confidence: “This crisis will be more severe than any I’ve known, and it will take longer to recuperate, but knowing that, you have to prepare yourself for the end of the crisis.”

Now De Maeseneire is no Warren Buffett, mind you. He’s not an investing genius in charge of trillions of dollars worth of floundering U.S. shares. But he does mind his $2.7 billion chocolate empire rather well.

Recent deals with his fellow Swiss outfit, Nestlé SA, local hero Hershey Co. (NYSE:HSY), Unilever (NYSE:UL) and even Kellogg’s (NYSE:K) Keebler elves, have boosted the most recent 12 months’ (July 07 through August 08) profits 66% over the previous twelve months. And while even Barry Callebaut was not immune to the massive global downdraft, shares have been rising steadily since last October.

Sunny, Warm and Cheap

Looking back to Brazil, what attracts De Maeseneire is also what has attracted the attention of my fellow editors, Chris DeHaemer and Justice Litle: not only do they want more “stuff” – cars, houses, food, highways, air conditioners, plumbing, whatever – but it is (still) just so damned cheap to get into these markets.

Barry Callebaut plans to spend some 15 million Swiss francs (that’s $12 million American) to either form an alliance with someone local, acquire or just plain build a plant of their own.

Here in the States, you can’t even bribe a congressman for that – pardon me: “fund a congressperson’s campaign,” let alone break ground on a new factory. And even that presumes you could pry a banker’s cold fingers from around that much cash in the first place.

C’est la Vie

If you are interested in buying into this tale of chocolate-powered optimism, and don’t feel up to wiring Europe for the shares, you could always pick up their local pink sheet offering listed as Barry Callebaut AG R (BYCBF.PK).

As with all pink sheet listings, it behooves you to keep an eye on volume before buying, as too many interested parties on any given day could push the price too high.

I will allow Messr. De Maeseneire to close today’s column: “If everything stops, of course the world will stop. I go out with the assumption that the economy will come back.”

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