Latest posts by Martin Moodie (see all)
De leur meilleur côté tâchons de voir les choses:
Vous vous plaignez de voir les rosiers épineux;
Moi je me réjouis et rends grâces aux dieux
Que les épines aient des roses.
– Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808-1890), French critic, journalist, and novelist
(which loosely but nowhere near as lyrically translates as)
Let us try to see things from their better side:
You complain about seeing thorny rose bushes;
While I rejoice and give thanks to the gods
That thorns have roses.
Every day in this job – no, labour of love – that I have been doing since launching what was then The Moodie Report in September 2002, I am reminded how many good things and fine people there are in the travel retail world, no matter how testing market conditions or personal circumstances may be.
This week served up another example. I received a delivery at Moodie Davitt Report Asia Pacific HQ (aka my home in Discovery Bay, Hong Kong), that through its outer protective packaging appeared triangular in shape.
Full unwrapping confirmed that reality, the item in question representing the most famous triangle in travel retail, a Toblerone bar (second most famous, I would contend, is our very own Trinity Forum logo).
But this was no mainstream Toblerone. Firstly, it was limited edition. But, again, no ordinary limited edition. It was, to quote the wording on the packaging, ‘Small Batch Very Limited Edition’.
And to confirm that fact, it was accompanied by a delightfully hued ‘Certificate of Authenticity’, declaring that I, Martin Moodie, was owner of No. 47 from just 4,000 Toblerone Strawberry Matcha bars available exclusively at Changi Airport in a worldwide exclusive.
As we reported on The Moodie Davitt Report.com, Mondelez World Travel Retail (WTR) partnered exclusively with Changi Airport Group and confectionery retailer FNA Group International in May to unveil the limited-edition Toblerone Strawberry Matcha bar, an activation highlighted by a green and pink Toblerone ‘Never Square’ Collection pop-up boutique at the Singaporean gateway.
Handcrafted in a run of 4,000 individually numbered bars, just 66 Toblerone Strawberry Matchas are available per day (with a slight variation some days to get the math right) in Changi Airport Terminal 2 for eight weeks throughout May and June. Well, make that 3,999 available at Changi as I am now the proud owner of one.
If the Certificate of Authenticity was appropriately matcha-coloured (a lovely fusion of electric emerald and deep jade) then the accompanying card from Mondelez World Travel Retail was bursting with strawberry pink.
The beautifully hand-written message inside thanked me (and, by implication, The Moodie Davitt Report) for our continued partnership and support.
“We trust this distinctive masterpiece serves as a tangible symbol of our sincere gratitude,” it read. “May this unique treat bring an exceptional moment of delight to your day – Warmly, Mondelez WTR”.
It most certainly did. Partly because I am a passionate advocate of the travel retail-exclusive (TREX) concept, to the point I have created The TREX Awards (to be revealed this week) and a B2C/B2B film series (The TREX Factor) dedicated to such products. But more so for the simple act of human kindness and the thought and effort that went into it.
The gesture was rendered the more touching by the fact that Mondelez WTR had earlier donated US$1 to #KickCancerThon for every ultra-limited Toblerone Pink Crush bar it sold through Qatar Duty Free at Hamad International Airport during a three-month world exclusive from December 2025.
#KickCancerThon is the travel retail community global fundraising and visibility campaign for cancer research, conceived by my late daughter (and our former Chief Operating Officer) Sinead Moodie
Each of the 6,000 bars was individually numbered with a restricted allotment released daily, positioning Toblerone Pink Crush as a rare collectible in travel retail. And, yes, it did sell out. And an amazing US$6,000 was subsequently donated to The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, Sinead’s and The Moodie Davitt Report’s chosen cause.
Two ultra-exclusive products, genuine TREXs born of the single product most synonymous with duty free, an astoundingly sustained tale of success over decades.
And two acts of kindness, very different in scale but bound together by a common sense of humanity as tightly as a Toblerone bar is bound by that irresistible mix of honey, almonds and nougat.
I indeed rejoice and give thanks to the gods that thorns have roses. And Toblerone Strawberry Matcha. ✈
Postscript
Well you have to fill in the survey after tasting a Toblerone that truly tastes like a matcha made in heaven, don’t you?
