Neuhaus is a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

chocolatier A chocolatier is a person or company who makes confectionery from chocolate. Chocolatiers are distinct from chocolate makers, who create chocolate from cacao beans and other ingredients. Education and training Traditionally, chocolatiers, ...

which manufactures and sells luxury

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...

chocolate truffle A chocolate truffle is a type of chocolate confectionery, traditionally made with a chocolate ganache centre coated in chocolate, cocoa powder, coconut, or chopped and toasted nuts (typically hazelnuts or almonds), usually in a spherical, conica ...

biscuit A biscuit is a flour-based baked and shaped food product. In most countries biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be ...

s and

ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as str ...

. The company was founded in 1857 by Jean Neuhaus, a Swiss immigrant, who opened the first store in the ''

Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert The Royal Saint-Hubert Galleries (french: Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, nl, Koninklijke Sint-Hubertusgalerijen) is an ensemble of three glazed shopping arcades in central Brussels, Belgium. It consists of the or ("King's Gallery"), the or ...

'' in central

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

. In 1912, his grandson, Jean Neuhaus II, invented the chocolate '' praline'', a decadent chocolate cream ganache center inside a chocolate shell, the original filled chocolate. Today, Neuhaus has over 1,500 selling points in 50 countries. All Neuhaus products are still made in

Vlezenbeek Vlezenbeek is a small town of 3,324 in the Flemish Brabant southwest of Brussels, Belgium. It is part of the municipality Sint-Pieters-Leeuw. It is the home of Neuhaus, an international exporter of fine Belgian chocolate, as well as Lindemans Br ...

, near

, and are exported worldwide. In 2000, the company received the

Royal Warrant of Appointment Royal warrants of appointment have been issued for centuries to tradespeople who supply goods or services to a royal court or certain royal personages. The royal warrant enables the supplier to advertise the fact that they supply to the issuer of ...

to the Belgian court.

History

Having arrived in Brussels from his native Switzerland, Jean Neuhaus opened an apothecary shop in 1857 at the ''Galeries Royales'', near the

Grand-Place The Grand-Place (French, ; "Grand Square"; also used in English) or Grote Markt (Dutch, ; "Big Market") is the central square of Brussels, Belgium. It is surrounded by opulent Baroque guildhalls of the former Guilds of Brussels and two larger ...

. He began his business by covering the medicines in chocolate to make them easier to handle.

Liquorice Liquorice (British English) or licorice (American English) ( ; also ) is the common name of ''Glycyrrhiza glabra'', a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring can be extracted. The liqu ...

s, ''guimauves'' (similar to marshmallows) and dark chocolate tablets soon joined more traditional preparations on the display counter. With the assistance of his son Frédéric, he spent an increasing amount of time and effort in preparing and inventing new delicacies to the point where the regular pharmaceutical products gradually ended up making way for them. In 1912, the year of Frédéric's death, his son Jean II created the first chocolate-filled bonbons or ''pralines''. They were immediately successful. They were followed by another innovation. Louise Agostini, Jean's wife, realized that the pralines were getting crushed inside the paper cornet bags used to wrap them up. Together with her husband, she developed a

gift wrap Gift wrapping is the act of enclosing a gift in some sort of material. Wrapping paper is a kind of paper designed for gift wrapping. An alternative to gift wrapping is using a gift box or bag. A wrapped or boxed gift may be held closed with ri ...

box in 1915 which became known as the ''ballotin.'' The design for the ballotin was

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

ed, the registration document is date 16 August 1915 at 2.30pm (Belgian time). Jean's son-in-law, Adelson de Gavre, took over the running of the business. In 1958, he created a series of highly acclaimed pralines such as the ''Caprice'' and the ''Tentation'' which were first displayed at

Expo 58 Expo 58, also known as the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (french: Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles de 1958, nl, Brusselse Wereldtentoonstelling van 1958), was a world's fair held on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Brussels, Bel ...

. Suzanne Neuhaus, his wife, specialized in decoration and gift wrapping. The company expanded and stores soon appeared across the country and abroad. The first Neuhaus chocolate boutique in the United States] opened in 1999 in New York City. Today the Neuhaus Belgian chocolate range still includes traditional pralines, but has expanded to include chocolate bars & tablets, BonBons, confectionery, individually wrapped chocolate squares ("Carres"), and hot chocolate. They also create chocolate truffles, which in 2017 '' Bloomberg_News, Bloomberg Pursuits'' considered the best chocolate truffle in the world. Their chocolate is 100%

UTZ Certified UTZ, formerly called UTZ Certified, is a program and a label for sustainable farming. The organization was founded as a non-profit in the Netherlands in 2002. The UTZ label is featured on more than 10,000 product packages in over 116 countries. ...

, made with 100% ingredients of natural origin, and is still crafted entirely in Belgium. 25% of the chocolate is produced with cocoa from Neuhaus's own cacao farm.

References

External links

Neuhaus Chocolate Official USA website
{{chocolate Belgian chocolate companies Brand name chocolate Belgian brands Food and drink companies based in Brussels Food and drink companies established in 1857 Retail companies established in 1857 1857 establishments in Belgium Belgian Royal Warrant holders