For the Love of Chocolate

The last time I went to a chocolate factory, I ate myself sick and drew disapproving glances from my mother. I was 10 years old then and didn’t know Lotte from Lindt. The availability of unlimited chocolates was all that mattered and I ate so much that I had to forget chocolates for six months after that.

More than two decades later, as I stood before Mrs Devitore—whose coffee brown eyes and broad smile reminded me of my mother—in southern Switzerland’s Giubiasco, I knew this was going to be a different experience. I was at the production facility of Chocolat Stella for a guided tour. Stella has been innovating on chocolates since its inception in 1928 and is attributed to developing Switzerland’s first sugar free chocolate in 1960 and bringing out fair-trade, organic chocolates in 1991.

 There is perhaps something oxymoronic about the fact that Switzerland produces the world’s best chocolates without even being blessed with the basic ingredients: cocoa beans and sugar. Though, pardoning the cliché, if you consider happiness among the ingredients, the Swiss have plenty of it. “We might not have all the ingredients but Swiss chocolate is known all over the world because we have learnt the secrets of making chocolate from our neighbours,” says Devitore. When she says neighbours, she means Spain, France, Austria and Italy, where chocolate was introduced and gained prominence in the 16th century. Eventually, chocolate making arrived in Switzerland in 1819 when François-Louis Cailler started his Cailler chocolate company also considered the oldest Swiss chocolate brand still in existence (owned by Nestle now). Chocolate has evolved since then. The ancient chocolate was a drink, far unexciting from its varied forms known today.

 By now, I am inside the chocolate making facility, dressed in a diaphanous lab suit. We witness the churning of cocoa butter, sugar and milk powder to make white chocolate. The giant churner, fed with the mixture, clamps shut with the 350 kg mix and revolves with a grunt. Temperature is checked, 35oC, and the mass is sent for further processing to smoothen the mixture.

I ask Julia if she likes chocolates. Does she ever get bored with having to working with it all day? It is like asking a teller if he ever gets bored of currency. “Of course,” she says with an expression that probably meant “are you nuts?” The Swiss, like Julia, are what make the country the biggest consumers of chocolates in the world with average per capital consumption of 9 kg a year.

I am now asked to make my own chocolate. A vessel of liquid chocolate sits next to a tray into which I pour the chocolate. I embellish my bar with quinoa and almonds. After the decoration, the chocolate goes into the freezer.

 Among the other parts of the world including Central America, South America, Africa and Indonesia, Stella also works with cocoa producers in Kerala, sourcing cocoa beans. They are harvested, dried in plantain leaves and pressed to extract butter before they are sent to the production facility in Switzerland.

 We arrive at the packaging plant where I see men and women in lab coats and blue caps stacking freshly packed chocolate bars jumping out of the machine into cartons. Occasionally they pop a square or two into their mouths.

 Stella’s speciality is custom made chocolates. “If you need any specific flavour combinations, we will be able to deliver that,” Devitore had said earlier. As I walked towards the exit, on a table, a spread of chocolate varieties greet me—custom-made chocolates for clients with agave nectar, camel milk, blue potato chips and baobab.

I taste each one of them, not without recollection of my earlier chocolate factory visit. After all, who can get enough of chocolates? But as the trip ended, I leave a little tummy space for the chocolate I made and would take home with me, a large bar with a star (Stella) in the middle, sprinkled with quinoa and roasted almonds.