Bon Bons

Belgian Chocolate Company ISIS Decides It’s Time to Change Its Name (Again)

Cute rocketships, not RPGs.
Cute rocketships, not RPGs. Photo: Courtesy of ISIS

“An assortment of ultimate pleasure” is the slogan of ISIS, a charming 90-year-old chocolatier based in Belgium that brings in $44.17 million a year with its assortments of confectionary figurines in the shapes of complacent hens, cheery penguins, and daisy-wielding frog-princes. They used to be called Italo Suisse, but since they outgrew their ganache-making Swiss and Italian roots a long time ago, the company decided just last December to change its name. Now, for obvious reasons, it’s probably wishing it hadn’t done that.

“We had international customers saying that they could no longer stock our chocolate as consumers had only negative associations with the name,” its marketing manager tells Reuters, explaining that they’re now switching to Libeert, which does indeed have a less jihadist ring to it.

While no one should really confuse a maker of bon bons for a terrorist organization, Libeert could probably next focus on having sister company Tonkeys drop its dodgy association with the wildly offensive racial character Zwarte Pete, or “Black Pete,” a traditional Netherlands storybook character who literally gets paraded out in blackface during the holiday season to hand out candy and chocolate to kids. That, in fact, would really be the sweetest move.

[Reuters]

Belgian Chocolate Company ISIS Decides It’s Time to Change Its Name (Again)