Chocolade Jacques, one of the oldest Belgian chocolate producers, is in Belgian hands again, after twenty years of German and nine years of Swiss ownership. Sweets Products has bought Stollwerck, German chocolate producer and Jacques’s owner, for an unconfirmed amount from Swiss giants Barry Callebaut.
Returning to core business
It was no secret that Barry Callebaut wanted to focus on their core business, the production of industrial chocolate for companies like Nestlé: two years ago, the company had already entered negociations with Spanish Natra. Instead, it is a Belgian group that buys the 172 year old Stollwerck and its three German and one Swiss factory – and, of course, the Belgian Jacques factory at Eupen.
The German factory currently employs 1700 people and produces 100 million kilos of chocolate each year – generating a turnover of 500 million euro. Sweet Products’s Dutch group Baronie, currently consisting of factories in Veurne, Amsterdam and Rotterdam and a distribution centre in Lokeren, is suddenly expanded considerably southbound.
Competition authorities still need to approve of this takeover, but Barry Callebaut does not expect any problems. For the Belgian chocolate aficionados, the takeover (if confirmed) would be a very welcome compensation for the departure of the national chocolate treasure Chocotoff to Lithuania.
