Switzerland: The Land of Cheese and Chocolate? 

Why cheese and choco­late are more than just eco­nom­i­cal products… 

“Oh, you’re from Switzer­land, isn’t that where all that great cheese and choco­late come from?”, (peo­ple ask)you’re asked when­ev­er you tell them you come from Switzer­land. I have been asked that ques­tion mul­ti­ple times when­ev­er I was trav­el­ling in hun­gary. These are not just clichés: cheese and choco­late are impor­tant for the Swiss econ­o­my. Cheese exports are worth 693.8 mil­lion Swiss francs a year, while choco­late brings in 1.5 bil­lion Swiss francs. “Made in Switzer­land” is regard­ed as an indi­ca­tor of high quality. 

How­ev­er, the sig­nif­i­cance of these two prod­ucts goes beyond their eco­nom­ic val­ue: they real­ly are intrin­sic parts of Swiss cul­ture. We all know that a piece of “Gruyère”or a piece of Lindt choco­late is irre­sistible. But how do peo­ple who work with these prod­ucts all their lives see them? Is the yeasty taste of cheese and the sweet taste of choco­late the same for some­one so close to them? 

The cheese cul­ture in Switzer­land dates back a long time and actu­al­ly orig­i­nates from France. Even though that’s the case, Switzer­land rein­vent­ed cheese and made it its own. 

Count­less vari­eties have devel­oped over the years.  A lot of love and tra­di­tion goes into them all. Of course, the way cheese is made has evolved. Until the 18th cen­tu­ry hard cheese pro­duc­tion only took place in the alps in sum­mer, con­sid­er­ing that cow’s milk was very lim­it­ed and was need­ed for oth­er pur­pos­es too. Peo­ple used to do every­thing by hand, using spe­cialised tools, where­as now, machines are more and more impor­tant. But cheese­mak­ers’ pride in their “white gold” remains. Cer­ti­fied mas­ter cheese­mak­er Heinz Eggi­mann says “The art of mak­ing cheese depends on hav­ing a true pas­sion for it, hav­ing expe­ri­ence and crafts­man­ship. It takes a lot of time and effort to learn to be a good cheese­mak­er”. He’s been work­ing with cheese for 22 years now. He says that no machine could ever learn and recre­ate cer­tain fea­tures that a real cheese­mak­er requires. Cheese is some­thing tra­di­tion­al­ly cher­ished in his family. 

Swiss choco­late is famous through­out the world for its out­stand­ing qual­i­ty, unique feel, and wide range of tastes. How­ev­er, it is also an impor­tant part of every­day life in Switzer­land itself. The chances of you find­ing a Swiss per­son who has not eat­en choco­late are very low.  Accord­ing to the sta­tis­tics for 2021, Switzer­land has the high­est choco­late con­sump­tion in the world, at 8.8kg per per­son per year.  

I sup­pose every child dreams of hav­ing a father who works in a choco­late fac­to­ry and brings home a lot. One might assume that in the mod­ern world, big inter­na­tion­al com­pa­nies have lost the human touch – but it seems that this is not true in the choco­late indus­try. Lindt is one of the biggest choco­late com­pa­nies in Switzer­land and a major exporter. Over 150 mil­lion Lindt “Gold Bun­nies” are pro­duced each year. And this only cov­ers the demand for Lindt choco­late for East­er. Lindt is also the com­pa­ny which invent­ed conch­ing, which is the long process of mix­ing cocoa , sug­ar and milk at a high tem­per­a­ture until the melt­ing choco­late results. 

Lindt’s year­ly rev­enue is $4 Bil­lion. I inter­viewed Els Bleuler, 88, who grew up in the same vil­lage as the choco­late fac­to­ry “Lindt” is and spent most of work­ing life at Lindt – after grow­ing up with a father who real­ly did work in a choco­late fac­to­ry! She recalls, “My dad was always treat­ed well and loved his job.” With him hav­ing access to a lot of choco­late, she was able to enjoy choco­late fre­quent­ly with her fam­i­ly, and it has remained some­thing spe­cial through­out her life. She con­nects it with great mem­o­ries, being treat­ed well as a work­er and the com­pa­ny always mak­ing her feel like she was a part of it. To this day she gets fre­quent presents from the com­pa­ny, which always put a smile on her face. 

Does she have any tips con­cern­ing choco­late? Els Bleuler’s father used to eat a choco­late every evening before going to bed – he said it was good for him and helped him sleep. That’s a piece of advice I’m very keen to follow!