Milka
Encyclopedia
Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods Inc. is an American confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It markets many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earn more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, Tang...
. It is sold in bar form, in holiday shapes, and in a variety of specialty forms.
It was first created by the Suchard
Philippe Suchard
Philippe Suchard was a Swiss chocolatier and industrialist.-Biography:Suchard was born in 1797 in Boudry. According to the memoirs of his sister Rosalie, he became aware of the potentialities of chocolate manufacturing as an industry at the very early age of about twelve...
company in the early 20th century. In 1970, Suchard merged with Tobler
Toblerone
Toblerone is a chocolate bar brand owned by Kraft Foods, who acquired the product from former owner Jacobs Suchard in 1990. It is well-known for its distinctive packaging, its prism shape and its ubiquity in duty-free shops.The triangular shape of the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps is commonly...
to become Interfood. A merger with the Jacobs
Jacobs (coffee)
Jacobs is a brand of coffee that traces its beginnings to 1895 in Germany by Iohann Jacobs and is today marketed in Europe by Kraft Foods. Major markets are Austria, the Baltic countries, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Azerbaijan,...
coffee company in 1982 created Jacobs Suchard. Kraft acquired the majority of Jacobs Suchard, including Milka, in 1990.
The brand has a well-known symbol, the Milka Cow
Purple cow
The purple cow initially became famous as a chimerical referent in a short humorous verse, but has since come to refer to a diverse range of other things, including sports teams, food, wine, and tobacco products, as well as marketing practices in general...
, which is a lilac
Lilac (color)
Lilac is a color that is a pale tone of violet that is a representation of the average color of most lilac flowers. It might also be described as light purple. The colors of some lilac flowers may be equivalent to the colors shown below as pale lilac, rich lilac, or deep lilac...
colored Montbéliard cow which are normally brown-white, with a completely white face. She sports a bell around her neck, and is usually shown in an Alpine
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
meadow. According to the official site www.milka.co.uk, the name is derived from combining Milch and Kakao, which are the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
terms for milk
Milk
Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...
and cocoa
Cocoa solids
Cocoa solids are the low-fat component of chocolate. When sold as an end product, it may also be called cocoa powder, cocoa, and cacao....
, chocolate's primary ingredients. Croatian sources alone claim it to be a tribute to Carl Russ-Suchard's admiration of Wagner interpretations of the singer Milka Ternina
Milka Ternina
Milka Ternina was a Croatian dramatic soprano who enjoyed a high reputation in major American and European opera houses...
, a famous soprano of the time. The chocolates are distinctively packaged in purple.
Today, the chocolate is produced at a number of locations, including Lörrach (Germany)
Lörrach
Lörrach is a city in southwest Germany, in the valley of the Wiese, close to the French and the Swiss border. It is the capital of the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg. The biggest industry is the chocolate factory Milka...
, Bludenz (Austria)
Bludenz
Bludenz is a town in the state of Vorarlberg in Austria. The town, surrounded by mountains, lies at the meeting point of five different valleys: The Klostertal, The Montafon, The Walgau, The Brandnertal, The Groß Walsertal....
, Belgrade (Serbia)
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, Svoge (Bulgaria)
Svoge
Svogue is a town in western Bulgaria, part of Sofia Province. It is located in the gorge of the Iskar River, at the place where the mountains Mala planina, Golema planina and Ponor meet, 40 km north of the capital Sofia....
, Bratislava (Slovakia)
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
, Braşov (Romania)
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
, Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
, Curitiba (Brazil)
Curitiba
Curitiba is the capital of the Brazilian state of Paraná. It is the largest city with the biggest economy of both Paraná and southern Brazil. The population of Curitiba numbers approximately 1.75 million people and the latest GDP figures for the city surpass US$61 billion according to...
, Jankowice (Poland)
Jankowice, Greater Poland Voivodeship
Jankowice is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Tarnowo Podgórne, within Poznań County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Tarnowo Podgórne and west of the regional capital Poznań....
and Trostyanets (Ukraine), and most recently Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
.
During the 1990s, Peter "Cool Man" Steiner became famous advertising Milka chocolate bars. The bearded septuagenarian portrayed a mountain dweller who warns an urbanite about holding prejudices against people who live in the mountains: "Sie glauben wohl auch, dass wir hier oben etwas altmodisch sind. Aber Vorsicht: It's cool, man!" which translates as "You probably also think that we're a little old-fashioned up here. But watch out: It's cool, man!" Steiner's song It's cool man reached 4th place in the official Swiss charts.