Meiji to buy more cocoa beans as sales beat target

Tokyo

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 up-scale 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, said Masahiro Sato, manager at Meiji's confectionery sales division.