It's National Chocolate Day and to celebrate CHRIS TITLEY looks ahead to the sweet life to come.

MEET the man who has tasted the future. Dr Arthur Day could be described in many colourful ways, as the sweetmeat Mystic Meg, or the chocolate futurologist. But his actual title, head of innovation at Nestl Rowntree, sums up his job nicely.

Dr Day, 54, gazes into the crystal ball of confectionery to define what the gluttonous British public will be munching somewhere between next month and next millennium. Chocolate will always be with us he says, reassuringly, but his job is to find out what new forms of sweet treats will make us swoon with delight in the years to come.

Dr Day said his brief is to "go beyond the current boundaries": in other words, to think outside of the chocolate box. And he foresees a future when confectionery will be designed with our own individual enjoyment in mind.

It's called nutri-genomics, and it is something that could be with us in the next 20 years.

"We will all have our DNA profile. We will know what genes we have got in what order and how they are expressed," he said.

"Part of that will tell us how we react to food. We will potentially see people being able to manage their diet in a much more scientific way tailored to them.

"We are currently in this crazy situation where half the population are on a diet and it's making no difference. We're eating the wrong things for us, but we don't know they are the wrong things."

This new science will not just restrict what we eat, however. It has a fun application too: what Dr Day describes as the psychological dimension.

"It will define the individual foods that give you the most pleasure. We will be able to produce chocolate much better tailored to trigger your pleasure zones more effectively."

Imagine it: a bar created expressly to push your own personal chocolate buttons. Now, stop that - no drooling on the Evening Press, please.

In his lengthy career with Nestl, Dr Day always had an interest in product development. Now, as head of innovation, he has to look years ahead. That foresight is crucial in a rapidly changing world, he says.

"If you just say 'we're in the confectionery market, we're doing very nicely' and close your mind to other possibilities, it isn't long before you realise the world has gone past you."

Just look at the way Kellogg's is muscling in on Nestl's market with cereal bars and Fruit Winders.

No one can see the future, Dr Day asserts. So don't ask him next week's lottery numbers. What he can and does do is analyse trends and "extrapolate them forward" to see what we might fancy to nibble on in five or ten years' time. Some trends are easy to predict. Population figures show Britain is getting older. That fact is unassailable.

Some are more tricky. Most experts agree that the world is undergoing climate change, but no one is sure precisely where the weather is going. Will we want to stock up on choc ices or hot chocolates?

"Some trends fizzle out, some are not predicted at all," said Dr Day. "The classic is mobile phone texting, which was never predicted, but youth culture bought into it in a big way."

In terms of food, he points out that nowadays we often "assemble" our evening meal: we buy chicken breasts, a cook-in sauce, frozen peas, and fit them together on our plate.

Even this is sometimes too time-consuming for our busy lives. So we graze. "Our slogan is, the meal is dead, long live the snack," said Dr Day.

For Nestl Rowntree, the future might mean new forms of old favourites. The KitKat was invented in the Thirties, but only in more recent years have we enjoyed orange ones, chunky ones, ice cream ones and, in its latest, KitKat Kubes incarnation, bite-size ones.

We can also expect brand new products. Not all of them will succeed. Anyone remember Pretzel Flipz, the chocolate-coated salted pretzels, which were dropped two years after their launch?

On the flip side of Flipz is the Nestl Double Cream bar. This emerged from Dr Day's research which suggested people wanted to indulge themselves with better quality treats. This bar blends double cream, instead of the more usual skimmed milk, with top drawer chocolate made from the Ecuadorian cocoa bean.

Our desire for more quality is confirmed by the success of Monk Bar Chocolatiers, the handmade choc shop run by ex-teachers Ray and Liz Cardy. The couple, who also own Chocolate Heaven, in Shambles, don't have a department to look into the future, but they do know what sells.

"Chocolates that have alcohol in them," said Ray, emphatically. "The Baileys, Tia Maria and cherry brandy ones.

"Alcohol and chocolate goes together extremely well in a ganache, which is a mixture of chocolate and creams."

Of the 58 different treats on their menu 36 are the original favourites they launched when they opened the shop in 2000. But every year they try out new treats.

While unpopular ones are ditched, successful ones become a permanent line. "The last one we had came in about a week ago. We call it Dutch Gold because it contains Advocaat. We've blended Advocaat with plain chocolate and cream to make a wonderfully smooth ganache that is proving extremely popular."

Ray has noticed that more children and teenagers are now buying his chocolates. The customers of the future are developing a discerning palate.

"Our tastes are changing. People are going abroad a lot more, tasting chocolate in France and Belgium and places like that.

"As a nation we are getting to appreciate great chocolate."

Choc idol:

Anyone following this year's Pop Idol sing-off could not have missed its Nestl sponsorship.

This takes the form of the Choc Idol contest, in which anthropomorphic chocolate bars appeal to be voted the nation's number one in between the ad breaks.

Astonishingly, each of the Choc Idols has been given a full personality profile. Rolo, for example, is from Newcastle and likes Robbie Williams, while KitKat Chunky is a Stereophonics-loving student from Manchester.

It might have passed you by but the Nestl Double Cream character is from York; although "she" has dual nationality, British and Ecuadorian (because of the Ecuador beans, you see). But she is lagging behind in the public vote. So Nestl Rowntree wants York to get behind its Choc Idol and vote online at www.VoteNestleChocIdols.co.uk.

Incidentally, if there is anyone who is both from York and part-Ecuadorian, please give Chris Titley a ring on 01904 653051 ext 337. It might be worth some chocolate...

Updated: 16:10 Friday, September 26, 2003