Johannesburg - It’s every chocolate lover’s dream to score an invitation to a chocolate factory. One imagines huge vats of bubbling chocolate and unlimited samples.
That’s not exactly what I found when The Angela Day team went on a tour of the Kees Beyers chocolate factory in Kempton Park.
The Beyers brand of chocolates is not very well known, but I was interested in the kind of chocolates they made and for whom the factory produced them.
We were met by managing director Kees Beyers, a Belgian-born confectioner who decided to make South Africa his home over 25 years ago while on a working holiday to this country.
Spotting a need in the market for quality chocolates, he opened a small factory and started producing hand-made chocolates.
The 20m2 facility produced 20kg of chocolate. Today the 7 000m2 factory produces 35 tons of chocolates every week.
Until recently the factory produced chocolates for most of the supermarket chains, but it has now launched its own brand.
Kees pointed to a large container filled with the biggest slabs of chocolate I have ever seen. This is how the raw chocolate arrives from Belgium.
It’s hard to grasp those sorts of quantities. The slabs are melted down and turned into so many different kinds of products, from flavoured bars and slabs to truffles, balls, eggs and more.
Many of the chocolates are decorated by hand. We watched as truffles came along a conveyor belt and were individually sprinkled with coffee granules.
Production for Easter had already started and hundreds of egg moulds were being filled and decorated. The speed at which this was done amazed me.
We watched as thousands of chocolate discs were wrapped in gold foil, and then stamped to produce a coin. “We have our own mint here,” joked Kees.
The whole place had the most wonderful chocolatey smell and although it looked nothing like Charlie’s chocolate factory – there was not an oompa-loompa in sight – it was interesting to see just what went into producing the box of chocolates you might get for Christmas.
After some sampling, we decided that the chocolate espresso and chocolate peanut butter slabs were our favourites.
There is also a factory shop where you can buy over-runs and excess chocolate at discounted prices. I will definitely go back to do my Christmas shopping. - The Star, Jenny Kay
Visit www.beyerschocolates.com