The company that makes Cadbury chocolates and Oreos is launching a new chocolate that can resist heats of up to 104 degrees without melting, and it should be on shelves soon—but probably not the ones in US grocery stores. This isn't a Willy Wonka-style gimmick so much as a pragmatic business move to make more money. Mondelez International has created the product to help increase sales in "emerging markets" like Africa and the Middle East, where many market vendors don't have refrigeration and high temperatures can make it difficult to keep food cool, reports Reuters.
"You go to an open market in Lagos, you don't find many cool places there," says a company executive. " As supermarkets expand it will make it easier for us, but at the moment we want to move fast." He wouldn't give a launch date for the heat-resistant snack—which Mondelez has been working on for a decade— but said the company is hoping it will be "pretty soon." Other plans to boost sales in developing countries: Selling individual sticks of gum, and Oreos in packs of two instead of 12. (More chocolate stories.)