Belgian chocolate company ISIS is changing its name

Belgian chocolate company ISIS is changing its name
(Image credit: Facebook/Tonkeys)

When you hear about ISIS, chocolate probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind — and for one Belgian company, that's a huge problem.

Not only is ISIS the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a brutally deadly extremist group — it's also the name of a Belgian chocolatier. The ISIS chocolate brand, founded in 1923, was apparently named after Italy and Switzerland, where its founder learned to make chocolate. The company just changed its name last year from Italo Suisse to ISIS. Unfortunately, it now has to change its name again, thanks to the popularity of the terrorist group.

Reuters reports that customers are souring on the brand, thanks to recent headlines about ISIS militants. "We chose ISIS as that was the brand name of our pralines and tablets," Desiree Libeert, the company's marketing manager, told Reuters. "Had we known there was a terrorist organization with the same name, we would have never chosen that. We had international customers saying that they could no longer stock our chocolate, as consumers had only negative associations with the name."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The company is changing its name from ISIS to Libeert, after the owners' family name.

Continue reading for free

We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.

Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.

Meghan DeMaria

Meghan DeMaria is a staff writer at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked for USA Today and Marie Claire.