Factory that invented chocolate bar closes months before centenary

A big blow for lovers of Belgian chocolate: just before its centenary, chocolate factory Jacques will be forced to close its doors. Jacques’ most important claim to fame is the invention of the chocolate bar in 1936.

Seven straight years of loss

The owner of Choclaterie Jacques, Baronie Group, says that the factory has been loss-making since it was taken over from Barry Callebaut in 2011. At that time, the factory lost the actual production of chocolate: since then, the factory has been supplied with chocolate from elsewhere and only processed it into chocolate bars or pralines. This has proven to be unprofitable, despite repeated investments. Seventy jobs may be lost. 

Owner Baronie Group will close the factory in May 2019, 99 years after the foundation of Chocolaterie Jacques and 97 years after the opening of this factory in Eupen, in the German-speaking eastern tip of Belgium. The company’s claim to fame is the patent it filed in 1936 for the very first chocolate bar. Eight decades later however, the loss of a large British customer probably means the end for the factory, even though the trade unions still believe in the rescue. For Baronie Group this is the fourth factory closure in a short time.