Switzerland is a small mountainous country, whose climate is anything but tropical.

It may seem surprising that it has become one of the world’s leading chocolate manufacturers.

Now that you mention it, swissworld.org, it does seem strange. I’d never wondered about Swiss chocolate much before – I’d just devoured it in large quantities without giving much thought to its origin and history.

But now that Swiss chocolate is fresh in my mind and recent on my tongue, I thought I’d find out a little more.

The European love affair (indeed, the vast bulk of the top twenty chocolate consuming countries are European) began with the introduction of cocoa to Europe from the Americas in 1528 by the Spanish conquistador, Cortez.

By the 17th century, the appeal of this new la-di-dah drinking chocolate had spread from the Spanish court to the French court with the marriage of the Infanta Anne of Austria to King Louis XIII (1615). Although the heyday of hot chocolate was winding to a close by the 19th century, the popularity of the recently invented solid chocolate was on the increase. It took off from there – and soon chocolate bars, milk chocolate and fillings of dried fruit, liquor and praline emerged as if by alchemy.

Switzerland became synonymous with chocolate in the years 1890-1920, a period which coincided with the “golden age” in Swiss tourism. I tried to find some recent facts and figures about the consumption of Swiss chocolate, but like any statistics, you can find just about anyone willing to say anything.

I couldn’t resist the figures from CHOCOSUISSE, the Association of Swiss Chocolate Manufacturers, as anyone who captions a graph of Per capita consumption (Source: International Confectionery Association) with ‘The Swiss like chocolate’ are definitely alright by me in the high-brow stakes.


The Swiss like chocolate. In 2007, as in previous years, they had the highest per capita consumption with 12.3 kg. However, this includes purchases by tourists and cross-border commuters.

And I like Swiss chocolate. I was most impressed to sample the Swiss interpretation of “chocolate biscuit” as heavy on the chocolate and light on the biscuit (I mean, if I wanted a “biscuit chocolate” I would have asked for one!)