Aeschbach Chocolatier AG

Visiting chocolate companies is usually fun and at Aeschbach Chocolatier it's no different thanks to Juerg Rogenmoser, Marketing Director. I'm in Cham a suburb of Zug and am standing in front of a undistinguishable three-story building in an industrial park. Since 1978 this has been home to Aeschbach. If one goes to the backside of the building you can see a large Aeschbach sign atop the building, which is lit-up at night and visible to passing motorists on the freeway less than 500 meters away.

About 40 to 50 people (depending on the season) work in the three-story factory/head office. Employee parking is plentiful, there's no cafeteria but a break room, smoking isn't allowed, there's no formal dress code, it's four miles to downtown Zug and 30 miles to Zurich's airport. Any employee perks? Free chocolate on special occasions.

Managing Director Markus Aeschbach, who's parents founded the company back in 1972, occupies a corner office on the top floor. I note the hardwood floor, spot a computer, don't see any plants nor any chocolate but, there is a bowl of apples.

So, who buys the chocolate made by Aeschbach? Aeschbach does a lot of contract work for other companies. For instance while I was there a big tractor trailer truck from Migros, Switzerland's largest grocer, was loading boxes of who-knows-what onto the truck. Aeschbach also supplies bakeries and patisseries with chocolates, which are passed off as being made by the bakery or patisserie. The company also does quite a bit of business via its website and has a shop located near Zug's train station.

There's an on-site company store open to the public and we go there for a look at Aeschbach's product line. Wow, all kinds of packaged chocolates with a big variety of liqueur-filled chocolates. As I get ready to leave Rogenmoser hands me a bag filled with a sampling of goodies.

Later in the day I open a box and sample their most famous product; rum cubes. Holy cow, they're fantastic! You can't stop once you start eating these bite-size bits of butter cream chocolate with an aroma of rum. Dangerously good!

Company website: www.aeschbach-chocolatier.ch

Sidenote: A few weeks later I go into a patisserie and see boxes of Aeschbach's rum cubes. They come in a distinctive wrapped box(without the Aeschbach name on it) that's suppose to look like a cobblestone–as in the kind you see in the old city centers. Anyway, Rogenmoser had told me they made these for shops and the owners would pawn them off as having been made by themselves. I point at the rum cubes and told the owner I recently visited Aeschbach where these are made. Well, it was a pretty funny scene as the woman repeatedly kept saying the cubes were made in the store and denied ever hearing of Aeschbach.