One of the more famous of the Monty Python skits was "Crunchy Frog", wherein a demented confectioner provided such delicacies as "crunchy frog", "ram's bladder cup", "cockroach cluster" and "anthrax ripple". Sweets not likely to impress your sweetie.

But are the "real" sweets necessarily better? What about counterfeit chocolates?

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D958GRK80.htm

"The French customs service announced Tuesday [December 23] that officers at the giant Rungis international market outside Paris seized nearly 33,000 boxes of gold-foil-wrapped morsels, on suspicion that they were counterfeit Ferrero Rochers, a popular Italian chocolate brand. Lab tests and an examination by Ferrero itself found that the seized candies were harmless but low-quality copies. They arrived in France by refrigerated truck from Turkey and were seized in late November." Hmm, guess these aren't Turkish Delight.

All in all, the amount seized was: "10 tons of coconut-filled dark chocolates and milk chocolate balls worth an estimated 223,500 euros ($312,230)."Perhaps that makes them "faux-conut cluster", "milk chocolate biles" or "dark mock-olate".

"The customs office said the fake Ferreros confirmed a trend seen in recent years of counterfeiters moving on from luxury goods like leather handbags and expensive perfumes to more day-to-day consumer goods like food, medicine and car parts." In other words, anything and everything that can be faked for less than its store price can be, will be and likely is being counterfeited.

Maybe even the crunchy frog--methinks Milton doth protest too much?

"Milton: It says 'crunchy frog' quite clearly."

"Praline: Well, the superintendent thought it was an almond whirl. People won't expect there to be a frog in there. They're bound to think it's some form of mock frog. "

"Milton: (insulted) Mock frog? We use no artificial preservatives or additives of any kind!"

How carefully do you think Milton is really monitoring his supply chain? In today's world of outsourcing, indeed we're "bound to think it's some form of mock frog", but not for the reason Inspector Praline cites.

 [Thanks to John Keogh of the GS1 for the article link]

Cheers,

Steve