Our shared passion for craftsmanship brought together Job Smeets, the creative force behind Studio Job and celebrated worldwide, and Julius Persoone, one of Belgium's most distinguished chocolatiers.
🍫 Say Hello to MEURISSE, 🙌 Belgium's oldest chocolate factory since 1845 🇧🇪 Sweetness that's stood the test of time—give it a try our legendary & organic chocolate with our SMILEY Price!
Callebaut chocolate, from Belgium, is officially the world's largest chocolate manufacturer and by far the most popular chocolate brand for many chocolatiers & the food service as a whole.
Belgian Chocolate as Luxury Chocolate
Because of its rich flavour and impeccable texture, Belgian chocolate has become the gold standard of luxury chocolate around the world. From perfectly tempered truffles to delicately filled pralines, each piece is made to impress and delight.
Ingredients: Belgian chocolate has a higher proportion of cocoa liquor to cocoa butter than Swiss chocolate, giving it a richer, more intense chocolate flavor. The Swiss also tend to use condensed milk in their chocolate, whereas Belgians use whole milk.
Chocoladefabriken Lindt & SprĂĽngli AG, doing business as Lindt, is a Swiss chocolatier and confectionery company founded in 1845 and known for its chocolate truffles and chocolate bars, among other sweets. It is based in Kilchberg, where its main factory and museum are located.
Today there are almost 2000 chocolatiers in Belgium, with Brussels often hailed as 'the chocolate capital of the world'. Large industrial brands like Godiva, CĂ´te d'Or and Leonidas are well-loved globally, and the mass-marketing of such brands has played a major role in building Belgian chocolate's reputation.
Coenraad van Houten Invents Cocoa Powder and Cocoa Butter
Before van Houten's invention, chocolate-making was a laborious process that involved grinding cocoa beans into a paste. But with his innovation, the production of chocolate products became much more efficient and affordable.
Today, Belgium's Finest is specialized in making multi-purpose chocolate callets. These callets are easy-to-use chocolate drops made from the best cocoa beans and blended by Belgian master chocolatiers. Due to their shape, they are handy to dose.
Snickers is known around the globe as a sweet, substantial candy bar. It's packed with peanuts, caramel, and nougat, all enrobed in tempered chocolate. It was introduced by Mars in 1930, and the company has been refining the recipe ever since.
Being a chocolatier is a lot of hard work. You will have to practise constantly to master the skills you will need to perfect what is considered a combination of science and art.
In the Belgian town of Wieze, Barry Callebaut operates the largest chocolate factory in the world. Around 350,000 tons of chocolate are produced here every year.
Want to hear something mind-blowing…a single bar of chocolate weighing 1.76 ounces is $450! That's right. Four hundred and fifty dollars!
The Verdict? For smoothness: Lindt edges out. For cocoa intensity: Ghirardelli wins.
A bar of 100% dark chocolate is made with zero sweetener, and often no ingredient other than cacao beans. Some companies use additional cocoa butter or a small amount of plant lecithin to smooth out the chocolate in the refiner, but must maintain that chocolate at a minimum of 99.75% cacao by volume.
Unparalleled Belgium Heritage Since 1926
Nearly 100 years after being founded in Brussels, we continue to honor our Belgian roots by ensuring that every piece of GODIVA is bursting with quality, Belgian craftsmanship, and the world's finest ingredients.
The Ovaltine brand is one of the most famous Swiss brands. Toblerone is a chocolate brand from Switzerland founded in 1867 by the house Tobler. This chocolate is produced in Bern.
The traditional Swiss company with its roots in Zurich is a global leader in the premium chocolate category. Today, quality chocolate products by Lindt & SprĂĽngli are manufactured at 12 of its own production sites in Europe (Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France, Austria) and the USA.