Did you know that in Switzerland you can catch a train called the Chocolate Express that will deposit you at a chocolate factory that's like a mini Disneyland for chocolate with unlimited chocolate tastings? Come along we explore Maison Cailler, a Swiss chocolate brand that you can only find in Switzerland and produces a unique type of chocolate.
The Chocolate Express arrives to the train station with a flourish and we all excitedly climb aboard for the short ride to Maison Cailler in Broc, in the Gruyere region of Switzerland. For those outside Switzerland the name Maison Cailler may not be immediately familiar and that is because Maison Cailler is only sold in Switzerland. It is also the oldest brand within the Nestle family and the oldest chocolate brand still in existence starting more than 200 years ago in 1819. Maison Cailler is also the place where milk chocolate was invented by Cailler founder Francois-Louis Cailler's son in law Daniel Peter in 1875.
What makes Cailler chocolate so unique is that they only use Swiss products except for the cocoa beans. That means Swiss sugar as well as milk and it is this milk that is the key to their chocolate. Many other brands use milk powder but Cailler are the only Swiss brand to use liquid milk through a collective of 44 local farms within a 30km/18mile radius of Broc. The fresh milk from the 1800 cows is delivered within 48 hours and it is then condensed and then added to the cocoa paste.
All of the chocolate produced for Cailler is in Broc at the foot of the Swiss Alps. In 1898 François-Louis Cailler decided that this would be the site of his factory as it was close to a dairy production area. The Alpine milk was crucial as they needed it to make milk chocolate which was invented by Daniel Peter over 20 years earlier. At the time it was the biggest chocolate factory in the world making Swiss made bean-to-bar chocolate. Nowadays it makes 10,500 tonnes of chocolate annually using 2,600 tonnes of cocoa beans and 1,300 tonnes of condensed Swiss Alpine milk.
In 2010 they opened an immersive world and museum with 8 rooms that give it a mini Disneyland-esque vibe and a fun way of learning about the history of the company and about the pioneers of chocolate in Switzerland. They welcome half a million visitors a year and it is the most visited attraction in French-speaking Switzerland. These tours are well priced at 17CHF/$31AUD/$22USD per adult.
When you arrive, you take a little translation machine that you put to your ear where it will take you through to each of the 8 rooms and gives you commentary in your own language. Each room tells the history of chocolate in a fun way with animation, moving sculpture and lights and takes around 15 minutes.
After that we emerge into a sensory room where we are encouraged to learn further and taste and touch. We can taste the freshly roasted Spanish almonds and Italian hazelnuts and pick up enormous, craggy chunks of cocoa butter.
The final room on the chocolate tour is the room that dreams are made of. This is where guests can help themselves to an unlimited amount of chocolate truffles in white, milk and dark chocolate. These chocolates are exquisite and each truffle offered has the ingredients in each shown on the side of each truffle. The staff are lovely and you can literally just eat chocolates to your heart's content.
We complete our visit to the factory with a chocolate making class creating our own chocolate bars where they offer us some delicious truffles. We are offered a range of mix-ins and the choice of white milk and dark chocolate for our two chocolate bars.
The chef's instructions are quite brief and it is quite a basic class so they don't really go into a lot of detail which is in stark contrast to the Lindt class where they really showed us how to get that perfect edges and produce a very nice looking product. However this class it is quite well priced at 30CHF/$56AUD/$37USD per person and you end up with two chocolate bars of your own design.
And on your last stop, you can stop and buy some of this uniquely Swiss chocolate in their gift shop. The chocolate makes fantastic gifts for chocolate lovers and foodies because it is only sold in Switzerland. And it's the last sweet stop of my trip to Switzerland.
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever heard of Cailler chocolate? Have you ever been to a chocolate museum?
NQN was a guest of Tourism Switzerland but all opinions remain her own. Maison Cailler is also part of a day pass that lets visitors explore Gruyere in one day. Along with Maison Cailler you can visit Gruyeres Castle and La Maison du Gruyere cheese factory and includes public transportation between sites.
Maison Cailler
Rue Jules Bellet 7, 1636 Broc, Switzerland
Phone: +41 26 921 59 60
Open 7 days from 10am-6pm
https://www.cailler.ch/en/cailler-experiences
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