7.4 Tons of Venezuela’s Gold Landed in Africa and Vanished (wsj.com)

I don't think they'd dump that much on gold leaf or flake pigment for disposable items. It's more likely for durable, reusable kitchen items, where non-corroding gold surface lends practical utility to consumer facing goods.

Either that, or there's a trade secret in their large scale industrial processes, that demands an amount of gold plated hardware to withstand amounts of heat and corrosion to protect flavor or some other quality control measure.