Monday Melt: *Happy Halloween!* Inspiring Chocolate Poster

Happy Halloween, dear reader!! We published this poster from 1913 for the first time a few years back, but it’s still our favorite Halloween chocolate poster to-date, so we had to share it for our new readers 🙂 Hope that you have a wonderful evening if you’re celebrating one of chocolate’s best holidays besides Valentine’s Day and Christmas! Trick or treat!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by time cupsoul (@timecupsoul)

History

The Menier Hardware Company was founded in 1816 in Paris by Jean-Antoine Brutus Menier, the time when chocolate was mostly used for medicinal purposes: to coat pills in pharmacies.

In 1825, chocolate production began in an old wheat mill on the Marne River at Noisiel, a small village on the outskirts of Paris. The location was first used for grinding of medical powders but was renovated by 1830 to become the first mechanized mass production factory for cocoa powder in France.

This “Moulin de Noisiel” has been a historic monument since 1992, named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and was renovated by Nestlé France, the company that eventually acquired Menier in 1988. The factory now serves as Nestlé France’s headquarters. Click the link to watch a video of the grounds. The renovated chocolate factory can be visited once a year in September. Many people call it the “cathedral.”