Business of Chocolate in Geneva, by Cyrielle de Montgolfier

Business of Chocolate in Geneva town 

We went in the little Town called Geneva Wednesday 26th of March. We started our way with the sun and we went see the Graham’s house for their chocolate fabrication. It was a little cosy house where people make the chocolate in front of their customers. They want to show the reality of their authentic fabrication. A sweet family who hold the store and work all together. Bob the owner of this company who manage and create and his two girls who work in the marketing and accounting. They explained us how it is to work in family, easy because they know each other but hard because they always speak about work. They form a very nice team. ( http://www.grahamschocolate.com )

We had the chance to speak with Bob about their company. They can have many problems when you work with a supplychain. In chocolate supplychain, problems are in the production of coco beans. It can be hard to get this seed all years because of the temperature. The production can slow down and depending on the scarcity of production, price can grow up greatly. To resolve this kind of problem they had to pay more or find an other supplier. Because of the price and the temperature Bob choose to get different supplier to have the opportunities to buy the best coco beans. 

My favorite culinary creation was bretzel covered of chocolate. We saw how they made it and it made me addictive when you start you have hard time to stop. I discover this sweet salty taste and I just loved it. An other creation I tried was fruit with chocolate, this two taste was really original and delicious.  

We learn about the community of Geneva. A lot of the people want to be  part of this community and they are involved in different cause in church, school, hospital etc. This can make great advertise too. I loved this mentality of wanted to support their community. 

During the day we also had the chance to visit an other culinary business, the sugar path specialized in cupcake. Two women hold the company and one explained us how they made their project and how its works. In a same time our professor Valerie Beck, who work in business of chocolate, tell us the story about coco bean, the chocolate origin and her start in this business. ( http://www.thesugarpath.com )

After our lunch in an authentic, healthy and vegetarian restaurant we met the mayor of Geneva, a very cheerful and welcoming man who was very happy to receive us. ( https://twitter.com/mayorburns )

We finish our day by visiting a fashion store create by two wonderful women. They explained us how they made their project real and gave us some advices with entrepreneurship. 

It was a very interesting day with lots of different people but with the same vision : be part of this cute town of Geneva. ( http://genevacommunitycenter.org )