With the bean-to-bar production line Josef Zotter, as one of the very few high-class chocolatiers in the world, carries out all of the production processes for the creation of chocolate in-house: from the roasting of the cocoa beans on rollers to the classic grinding in the conche, everything is made on-site with the greatest of finesse. Moreover, Zotter is one of the few chocolate makers that produces bean-to-bar in 100% organic and fair quality!
The creative centre for chocolate extends over 6,000 square metres. This is because the transformation of the bean into chocolate is a very complex process. Zotter treats each type of cocoa individually by matching the process to the character of the cocoa. This is dependent upon the peculiarities of each cocoa type – the subtleties, the extravagances and the aromatic origins of chocolate.
Cocoa beans are delivered
and before unloading,
we are controlling
We got a lot of fine cocoa from different countries in our cocoa warehouse - our treasure-house.
Zotter processes organic and fair traded cocoa only.
We check each cocoa sack 
The bean to bar process starts after the quality check.
They are first of all cleaned
Then roasted, individual for each bean variety.
During the roasting process the cocoa beans develop an aromatic scent.
Cocoa beans are debacterised
and finely crushed into small pieces to produce ...
cocoa nibs.
They are ground in the preliminary mill
where the cocoa butter melts.
Liquid raw cocoa mass runs out of the ball mill.
It looks like chocolate ...
but it tastes extremely bitter.
Sugar and milk give a kick to the mixture.
The team has to lend a hand
All the ingredients are there, but the chocolate is still very coarse.
On its way to the roller!
The mass is ground finely by pressure.
The chocolate is refined in the conche.
You need patience. For some hours the chocolate is stired inside the conche.
The Zotter chocolate is ready. It is the basic for various different products!
