Last year Cargill opened the doors to its state-of-the-art House of Chocolate® facility, inviting chocolate manufacturers to travel to the centre of the chocolate world in Mouscron, Belgium for a chance to embark on an expedition of inspiration, innovation and co-creation.
Located adjacent to Cargill’s main chocolate production facility in Europe, this 7000m2 building was designed with one thing in mind – to provide an all-in-one experience that helps manufacturers transform great ideas into innovative products.
Visitors are invited on an expedition into the world of chocolate, joining world-class chefs, sensory experts, and chocolate engineers as they explore the boundaries of what is possible. Here, they can collaborate and co-create to transform ideas into reality, faster and more efficiently, with the help of the brightest and most creative minds in the business.
Since its opening, the House of Chocolate® has hosted 130 meetings and hosted numerous chefs, giving them the unique opportunity to strengthen their skills in masterclasses and a demo day.
This unique facility is the perfect base for Cargill’s customers to innovate, providing an opportunity to discover chocolate trends and test out ideas in the sensory expertise centre, demo kitchen and even the pilot plant for small-scale production. Stephanie Arsac, R&D Manager at Pasquier explains “it is a very immersive experience in the world of chocolate with a lot of collaboration with the Cargill experts. It is somewhere you can think out of the box and fuel creativity within our own teams.”
Let’s dive into the world of chocolate and explore this hub of innovation for ourselves.
The birthplace of inspiration
Our journey into the House of Chocolate® begins in the Chocolate Experience Centre, where visitors can learn more about chocolate from beans to bar.
Leveraging its unique position in the global food supply chain, Cargill can provide its customers with a holistic view of the trends impacting cocoa and chocolate-based products and help them tap into these trends – whether it’s nostalgic flavours, conscious consumption, or healthy indulgence. This is all done with visually engaging video and sensory tables.
“Health and wellness remain a priority for many consumers, and the desire for healthy indulgence shows no sign of waning. Lighter textures and formats, such as aerated chocolate inclusions, are one way to offer consumers more permissible options. We also see heightened interest in plant-based innovations, especially those that avoid allergens and are made with label-friendly ingredients,” says Philippe Bernay, commercial marketing lead for Cocoa & Chocolate, Europe.
Next, visitors will head downstairs to level one to visit the Sensory Expertise Centre and Pilot Plant. Outfitted with state-of-the-art high-tech equipment, the sensory room allows for a wide range of sensory testing on anything from chocolate, coatings and fillings to ice cream or biscuits.
Here, recipes are evaluated and tweaked until they have the perfect sensory profile, including the right texture, shine, mouthfeel, smell, and flavour. Visitors can discover how they can incorporate these profiles into their chocolate creations by engaging with Cargill’s in-house chocolate engineers.
Room for co-creation
Heading over to the demo kitchen and brainstorm room, visitors can co-create and collaborate with Cargill’s top chocolate engineers on their latest design – all the way from idea to execution. The demo kitchen accommodates a host of trials and tastings so that customers and partners can explore all possibilities. With dry grinding and refining technologies, three batch sizes and down-scaled industrial equipment in line with FSQR standards, the House of Chocolate® is the perfect home for inimitable chocolate experiences.
In addition, world-renowned chefs regularly animate masterclass workshops and introduce artisans to Cargill’s gourmet brands, helping to deepen understanding and inspire creativity in the kitchen.
Ambassador Chef Peter Remmelzwaal, who hosts some of the masterclasses explains, “here in our demo kitchen, we can demonstrate the exhaustive range of chocolate applications like moulding, enrobing, panning or baking onsite, helping to stimulate inspiration and co-creation for novel chocolate treats. Our distributors and chefs visit the House of Chocolate to get inspired about new techniques, chocolate flavours and decorations, helping to create success together.”
“Leveraging its unique position in the global food supply chain, Cargill can provide its customers with a holistic view of the trends impacting cocoa and chocolate-based products and help them tap into these trends”
Kristien Gerits, Principal Manager Food Europe at Caldic agrees, saying “it’s not just a showroom – it’s really a place where you discover, innovate, co-create and tap into the ability to use sensory panels.”
The opportunity to innovate doesn’t stop in the kitchen, however. Customers can take their creations through to the next stage of production at the House of Chocolate® innovative pilot plant, where they can pilot their next innovation on small and medium production lines for early-stage chocolate, coatings and fillings product development.
“The pilot plant provides an opportunity to refine new products. It hosts a scaled-down version of a chocolate production line, which allows customers to test a recipe’s potential before full-scale production begins, increasing the speed to market for new creations. Once they fit the customers’ needs, scaling up happens fast and efficiently,” explains Cecile Roussel, R&D Manager for Chocolate, Coating & Filling at Cargill.
Small quantity samples can be produced at the adjacent pilot plant, replicating the manufacturing conditions of industrial lines, before going into large scale production.
Roussel adds: “this innovative approach is rounded off by our replica of a large-scale version of a chocolate production line. This gives our customers unprecedented product development capabilities and increased speed to go-to-market, turning ideas into reality.”
Alistair Smith, R&D Professional at Unilever agrees, saying “what a great facility for inspiring customers and bringing to life the world of chocolate!”
Building on success
Looking ahead, the team is aiming to offer faster, more comprehensive, flexible and reliable solutions. The House of Chocolate® will introduce five independent production lines of chocolate and coatings & fillings to significantly improve flexibility and increase volume while offering additional services such as raw material storage, an analytical lab, and an application lab.
“We have everything our customers need under one roof,” Inge Demeyere, Managing Director of Indulgence at Cargill comments. “Our aim is to leverage the co-creation model with an end-to-end process on a unified platform, delivering high efficiency and greater speed to market.”
Frederic Monachon, Director Industry Market Manager Food & Nutrition EMEA at Brenntag adds: “If you want to understand chocolate, that’s the place you want to go. It’s really about the people and passion – those people you can feel that they have chocolate flowing in their veins.”
Editorial contact:
Editor: Kiran Grewal kgrewal@kennedys.co.uk
