FOR a city built on chocolate, York seems to produce some dire confectionery. Not just this city, of course.

Is it just me or does almost everything the big companies make these days taste of double concentrated sugar crammed into cheap, fatty chocolate - and so harshly sweet as to set you off coughing?

If, despite the best efforts of this newspaper's campaign, Terry's of York is not saved, its mass-produced products will shift elsewhere, possibly to Eastern Europe.

We would still be able to eat Terry's Chocolate Orange and the rest, but the link with York would have been lost. This connection was more or less severed long ago, once the multinationals started moving in.

Still, it is easy to understand why people are upset at the proposed loss of Terry's. Generations of families have worked at the factory so the emotional roots run deep. This was shocking news, as first reported on this newspaper's front page. How could Terry's of York no longer have any presence in York?

The answer lies in the sort of world in which we now live. We are bombarded from all sides with cheap food, spoilt rotten for choice where once we would have had fewer well-chosen treats laid before our eyes. As part of all this superfluity, chill-packed fruit and vegetables are flown to us from around the world, defying the seasons to arrive here via polluting jets.

It all seems moderately mad but it is hard to avoid. I picked up a bag of salad in M&S the other day but put it down again, seeing that the contents had been flown in from Kenya. Mind you, I went for another bag instead - one which didn't seem to have travelled so far; but who knows for sure?

There is so much choice, so much food, and so many brightly-packaged sweet or salty treats for us to devour.

All this variety breeds rampant competition and making chocolate bars to satisfying our nibbling lust has become a rough business. There is only so much of the stuff we can all eat, only so many ways to expand a waist - especially when we are all supposed to be health conscious.

Don't get me wrong or mark me down as a no-treats misery-guts. I like chocolate and usually eat it once a week, a couple of proper-sized bars shared out between the family. Nothing fancy, just a touch more expensive than the everyday bars.

If we take further this notion that our sugar-drenched bodies can only take so much sweet stuff, matters do not look good for York. Terry's, miracles aside, looks set to depart, leaving Nestl to hold up the chocolate flag.

Let's hope that this huge international company keeps faith with the city of Rowntree. Sadly, decisions made far away, looking at sales figures while glancing at that remote historical dot on the map, are not always known for their compassion.

It could be argued the decline of Terry's in York is a symptom of the modern world, a place we all inhabit, often enjoying its benefits (greater choice, cheaper foreign travel, assorted technological wonders, so many different chocolate bars to eat and so forth).

Such advantages come with a price - the bigger world is a tougher, unromantic place, especially where huge businesses are involved.

If chocolate York faces a difficult time, there are other sides to this city. The expanding University of York is ever more important, especially with the announcement that 4,500 jobs could be created if ambitious expansion plans go ahead.

Emotionally, the university is at York's fringes rather than at its heart. But the city has to overcome this sense of remoteness. The university, with its seats of learning, commercial arm and the growing Science Park, offers a bright and interesting future.

York, this new York, needs the university to stay successful - just as much as it needs Nestl to thrive too.

One last thing, and perhaps it really is me, but is there any chance of Nestl and the multinational, multifarious rest making something that isn't quite so tooth-wrenchingly sweet?

Updated: 10:07 Thursday, May 06, 2004