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 The van Houtens, The Netherlands and the History of Chocolate   Food & Beverages With supermarket shelves stocked with a huge variety of goodies, boutique stores selling interesting and innovative products and the wholesale confectionery industry more exciting than ever, it is hard to think of a time before chocolate was in everybody’s cupboards. We often think of modern chocolate as originating in Belgium, or perhaps Italy, yet it was in the Netherlands that some of the most important inventions took place. Why was the Netherlands so important? In the 1800s the Netherlands was small but powerful. As a wealthy, seafaring nation, it controlled the majority of the world’s cocoa trade. The city of Amsterdam was one of the most important cocoa ports meaning that the city was full of cocoa beans, ready for intelligent chocolate lovers to get inventive. Inventing the Chocolate Bar Imagine life without the humble chocolate bar. The snap of an 80% bar, filling the room with its bitter aro