I'm from the region and to me it was always about "ooh, this is real chocolate, not Compound chocolate". Even as recently as a decade ago local producers would

I'm from the region and to me it was always about "ooh, this is real chocolate, not Compound chocolate". Even as recently as a decade ago local producers would be using vegetable oils and less sugar so as to keep costs down. I remember being surprised how much sugar there was in plain cookies in Italy. British sweets I cannot touch to this day because they're commonly packed with salt as well as sugar. Same goes for American products - Reese's cupcakes are my holiday season guilty pleasure which inevitably gets me sick every time. They're violently flavourful. On the flip side when I visited Ukraine in 2006 I noted that the local pralines had barely any sugar. The Swiss and Germans seem to understand sweets on a deeper level than the rest. Notable exception is Lindt, which roasts the cocoa beans to seven hells for consistency, achieving a consistently sour-bitter aftertaste in its products.