If you want to immerse yourself in Swiss culture, start your day in Kilchberg,the headquarters of the iconic Swiss chocolate, Lindt. I promise you that the occasional waft of melted chocolate on the air never gets old. It's like living next to Switzerland's most charming landmark. You’ve read Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, I am sure. The experience is very similar with an actual chocolate fountain and chocolate pouring forth from conveyor belts that you can taste as it's made. Make sure to get your tickets well in advance for a chocolate-making tour, particularly on weekends and during school breaks, the museum tickets sell out fast. You can browse the Lindt store and outlet, visit the Lindt Café, and learn how Swiss chocolate became the standard of what chocolate should be.
Image Credit: Pexels
Image Credit: Pexels
A boat ride to Kilchberg from Zurich's Bürkliplatz along the Silver Coast on the west side of Lake Zurich, added to my excitement even more. In my head, all I could see was me as Charlie from Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, ready to embark on a historic journey of the world famous chocolatier. The inventiveness and genius of Swiss chocolate pioneers are largely responsible for the development of chocolate from a gritty, bitter paste to the smooth treat it is today. The town of Vevey, located on the banks of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) in French-speaking western Switzerland, is where many of the major innovations and procedures in the production of chocolate first took place. I’m here to tell you all about it.
An Overnight Mishap
Cacao arrived from the Americas in the 18th century, bringing chocolate to Switzerland for the first time. It was a bitter, unsweetened drink that was mostly consumed by the affluent back then. In order to create a sweeter version that would appeal to European tastes, Swiss chocolatiers began grinding cacao and adding sugar in the late 1700s. However, the first chocolate bar was invented in 1819 by Francois-Louis Cailler. Then, in 1875, Francois-Louis Cailler's son-in-law Daniel Peter had the brilliant idea to make chocolate more delicious and less expensive by adding milk. Together, he and his neighbour, Henri Nestlé, who was an expert in condensed milk, created milk chocolate.
Image Credit: Lindt Home Of Chocolate
The 19th century changed everything. Swiss inventors created novel techniques. Daniel Peter's addition of condensed milk resulted in the creation of milk chocolate. Rodolphe Lindt developed the conching technique, which smooths and enhances the melt-in-your-mouth flavour of chocolate. Swiss chocolate became well-known worldwide thanks to these advances!
Rodolphe Lindt's invention in 1879 transformed the manufacturing of chocolate. According to company legend, Lindt may have purposefully or unintentionally left his mixing machine running for a whole weekend. He discovered that the chocolate had changed into a smooth, silky texture with improved flavour when he got back on Monday morning. The conching machine, a longitudinal stirring tool that refines chocolate while letting undesirable bitter flavours drain, was created as a result of this finding.
With the assistance of the Frey brothers, Phillippe Suchard, Jean Tobler, and others, Switzerland gained a reputation as the producer of the greatest chocolate in the world by the end of the 1800s, a distinction it maintains to this day. A tour in Switzerland is the best way to fully immerse yourself in the world of chocolates.
Joining Forces
The two businesses were united under the name ‘Aktiengesellschaft Vereinigte Berner und Zürcher Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprüngli’ which translates to ‘United Bern and Zurich Lindt & Sprüngli Chocolate Factory Ltd’ after Johann Rudolf Sprüngli-Schifferli purchased Rodolphe Lindt's chocolate factory in Bern in 1899. Lindt's conching formulas and secrets were transferred to the new company through this. According to what the tour guide explained to me, Sprüngli paid 1.5 million gold francs! That roughly means he paid almost 100 million Swiss francs, if you had to calculate the numbers today.
Approximately three-quarters of Lindt & Sprüngli's chocolate production was exported to twenty different nations by 1915, despite the difficulties posed by World War I. They established a permitted production facility in Berlin in 1928, a subsidiary in England in 1932, and a New York State incorporation in 1925. Surprisingly, Lindt did not start producing solid milk chocolate until 1934, despite the fact that it was created in Switzerland in 1875. Prior to this, the business solely made dark chocolate using the original formulas created by Rodolphe Lindt. For the Swiss market, they introduced the Lindt Milk and Lindt Cream chocolate bars.
In 1949, the well-known LINDOR product line was developed as a chocolate bar rather than the truffles we are familiar with today. The LINDOR truffle was first released in 1967 with the intention of being used as a Christmas tree decoration. Today, Christmas is incomplete worldwide without this famous chocolate.
Image Credit: Lindt Home Of Chocolate
Image Credit: Lindt Home Of Chocolate
The Lindt & Sprüngli Chocolate Process (LSCP) is a new and enhanced method of making chocolate that was created by Lindt & Sprüngli in 1972. Since conching, it was the most significant development in chocolate manufacturing. Compared to conventional techniques, which used dozens of conches, the LSCP consumed less energy and space while producing higher-quality products.