At the Chocolate Factory

In touring a chocolate factory, one is particularly impressed by the close controls maintained throughout operations. Work is carried out in an atmosphere of scientific exactness and nothing is left to chance.

Precision instruments regulate temperatures, stabilize the moisture content of the air, and control the time intervals of manufacturing operations and other items necessary to achieve quality results.

The equipment of a factory is heavy, massive and complex. Often representing an investment of many millions of dollars, there are literally tons of equipment that the cocoa beans must pass through on their way to becoming chocolate.

Automation Does the Job

Besides the equipment already described, the industry employs a number of fascinating machines to do the work of shaping and packaging chocolate into the familiar forms that we see every day on store counters. Some of the shaping machines perform at amazing speeds, squirting out jets of chocolate that solidify into special shapes at a rate of several hundred a minute.* Other machines do a complete job of wrapping and packaging at speeds that human hands would find impossible.

(* Separate from the chocolate industry but of interest nonetheless, is the enrober-a machine employed by many candy manufactures in the creation of assorted chocolates. The enrober receives lines of assorted centers (nuts, nougats, fruit or whatever desired filling) and showers them with a waterfall of liquid chocolate. This generally covers and surrounds each center with a blanket of chocolate. Yet other confectionery machines create a hallow-molded shell of chocolate which is then filled with a soft or liquid center before the bottom is sealed with chocolate.)

The mechanized nature of the entire chocolate-making process contributes greatly to the industry's high standards of hygiene and sanitation. To keep check on these standards, chocolate factories constantly run quality tests, which show whether the process is proceeding within the strict limitations designed for each product. These tests cover an amazing range-there are tests for the viscosity of chocolate, for the cocoa butter content, for acidity, for the fineness of a product and, of course, tests for purity and taste of the desired finished product.

All chocolate manufacturers, it is important to note, must meet the standards as set forth in the rules and regulations of The Food and Drug Administration. These govern manufacturing formulas, even to the extent of specifying the minimum content of the chocolate liquor and milk used. They also impose strict rules regarding the flavorings and other ingredients that may be used.

Reasons for Secrecy

Where methods of manufacturing are concerned; however, manufacturers have a completely free hand and have developed individual variations from the "pattern." Each manufacturer seeks to protect his own methods by conducting certain operations under an atmosphere of secrecy. Modern technology, in this respect, is reminiscent of the day of the Spanish monopoly.

Today's "secrets," unlike those of old, include many small but important details which center around key manufacturing operations. No chef guards his favorite recipes more zealously than the chocolate manufacturer guards his formulas for blending beans or the time intervals he gives to his conching. Time intervals, temperatures and proportions of ingredients are three critical factors that no company wants to divulge.

A Sanitary Atmosphere

A visit to a chocolate factory certainly will not reveal any secrets; however, the visitor will be impressed by the gleaming appearance that such a place has. Chocolate manufacturers conduct all operations under sanitary, laboratory-like conditions in keeping with the purity of the products they make. They follow a daily regimen of machine maintenance and general housekeeping that is not exceeded in the food industry.

Cleanliness is, indeed, the universal byword of the chocolate industry. Chocolate factories not only have careful programs for industrial sanitation and for the personal hygiene of their employees, but they are continually striving to improve their programs.

A Plant Within a Plant

Technicians use laboratories to analyze every phase of chocolate preparation-from raw materials to finished products. They test samples for the market as well as experimental products produced in a company's pilot plants.

These pilot plants consist of miniature equipment which duplicates a company's entire chocolate making process and those of some of their customers, as well as providing sample quantities of any product desired. Chocolate manufacturers are making increasing use of pilot plants in conjunction with their laboratory research programs to develop interesting new products and find new ways of making the old ones.

Conclusion

Particular emphasis has been given to the activities that have made the chocolate industry distinctive from all other industries. Each activity is characterized by a heritage of quality workmanship-certainly one of the hallmarks of chocolate making.

Chocolate making is much more than a series of scientific and mechanical phenomena. In a word, it is a true art, which started centuries ago and has been preserved and perfected to make chocolate America's favorite flavor.