Mention Switzerland abroad, and the person you're talking to may start dreaming of mouth-watering chocolate. If there is one thing that represents Switzerland in the eyes of the world, it must be chocolate. Yet at first there was nothing to suggest that Swiss chocolatiers were destined to tread a special path. Thanks to the matchless quality of their products, inventive curiosity and groundbreaking innovations, they honed the manufacture of chocolate to perfection. Today chocolate "made in Switzerland" dominates foreign markets, and export volumes have risen sharply since 2003.
The first cocoa bean was brought to Europe from South America in the 16th Century, but it took two hundred years before the first chocolate bar was produced. The delicacy first conquered Europe's royal households in the form of a drink mixed with honey and herbs. It was then discovered by confectioners, who used it in their creations. In the 18th Century, Italy became a centre of confectionary and chocolate-making, drawing practitioners from around Europe. Many chocolatiers from Switzerland had learnt their trade in Turin, Milan and Venice. Their know-how flowed back to Switzerland's chocolate pioneers, who gradually began opening the first factories and eventually turned Switzerland into the Number One chocolate nation by the early 20th Century.
One of these pioneers was François-Louis Cailler (1796-1852) from Vevey. He learnt his craft in Turin. Upon his return to Switzerland, he opened a mechanised chocolate factory in 1819. Jacques Foulquier (1799-1865) began manually producing chocolate in Geneva in 1826. His son-in-law and successor, Jean-Samuel Favarger, gave the brand that is still famous today its name. Philippe Suchard (1797-1884) from Boudry in the canton of Neuchâtel opened a chocolate factory that became famous far beyond the country's borders. A look at the industry in 1883 shows that Suchard accounted for 50 percent of the chocolate produced in Switzerland. In 1831, Charles Amédée Kohler (1790-1874), a wholesale grocer who also sold cocoa, decided to open his own chocolate factory. His most important creation was nut chocolate. Daniel Peter (1836-1919), a son-in-law of F.-L. Cailler and a close friend of Henri Nestlé, founded the Peter-Cailler company in 1867. In 1875, he succeeded in mixing cocoa paste with condensed milk, thereby creating the world's first milk chocolate, which he dubbed "Gala Peter". The result was so successful that the entire industry switched to this production method from 1880 onwards. Daniel Peter therefore played a pivotal role in helping Swiss chocolate reach the supremacy it enjoys today. Although chemist and pharmacist Henri Nestlé (1814-1890) did not produce chocolate himself, his company was responsible for the global marketing of Peter's milk chocolate from 1904.
Rudolf Lindt (1855-1909) opened a chocolate factory in Berne in 1879. A born tinkerer, Lindt constantly improved his mixing and grating machines until he had developed a method for producing a soft melting chocolate, which he called "chocolat surfin". It was the first chocolate that melted in the mouth, and signalled the birth of modern chocolate. Also in Berne, Jean Tobler (1830-1905) ran a confectionery shop in which he sold his own specialities alongside chocolate made by producers like Lindt. In 1899, he founded the Tobler chocolate factory. We have his son Theodor to thank for inventing Toblerone, the most famous of all Swiss chocolates, in 1908.
The years 1890-1920 were the heyday of Switzerland's chocolate industry, as it earned a reputation far beyond the country's borders. Tourism was booming, and members of the international high society, who spent their holidays in Switzerland, became the world's ambassadors for Swiss chocolate. Switzerland thus became something of a chocolate superpower, and by 1912 it had cornered 55 percent of the world's chocolate export market. International competition forced the Swiss chocolate industry to streamline its production while at the same time sticking to and further improving the tried-and tested recipes on which Swiss chocolate had built its excellent reputation.
How Swiss chocolate conquered the world
FE Team | Published: August 01, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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