A Chocolate Story

Most of us think of chocolate making as an assembly-line processlarge machines plopping candies onto conveyor belts whizzing around a large factory. And while that is part of the story of the chocolate bar, it is but the final chapter in a much longer book. All chocolate starts from the seed pod of a tropical rainforest plant, the cacao. Farmers harvest the seed pod, scoop out the pulp-covered cacao seeds, and dry them in the sun before shipping them off to markets for sale to major chocolate makers. The process from tree to market requires great amounts of human labor, including farmers tending to the plants, workers harvesting each pod with machetes, and laborers drying and preparing the seeds for transport.

Once the seeds have arrived at the chocolate-making factory, they're converted into chocolate in a complex, multi-step process. Seeds are sorted according to type, cleaned, and then carefully weighed so they can eventually be blended according to special formulas created by each manufacturer. Next, the beans are roasted in large rotating ovens for anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending upon the variety of seeds.

After roasting, seeds are milledcrushed by heavy steel discs, generating enough friction and heat to liquefy them into a thick paste, called chocolate liquor. The liquor then goes through one of two separate processes, depending upon what it is used for in the final stage of manufacturing. Some of it is placed in huge hydraulic presses that squeeze out the cocoa butter. The remaining unpressed liquor is blended with condensed milk, sugar, and extra cocoa butter to form chocolate. This more refined chocolate is cooled and warmed repeatedly in a process called tempering. Tempered chocolate is then shipped in a liquid state to other food manufacturers that use the flavoring in cookies and ice cream, or to make chocolate bars.

The process of turning the tempered chocolate into the solid bar form that most of us know takes both man and machine. Hershey's Chocolate, for example, uses automated machines to pour the tempered chocolate into molds to make candy bars of either pure chocolate or bars mixed with nuts or dried fruit. The molds cool in large refrigeration units and then move to wrapping and labeling machines. After this, the bars are boxed and distributed to the final points of sale. In small-scale chocolatiers, machines are a critical part of the production process, but the chocolatier often remains hands-on. In many cases, this includes adding final design touches and hand-molding designer creations for special events. With either operation, the goal is identical: to make the finished products that we find on the shelves of our local markets and in the display cases of our local chocolate shops.

Activity Directions: After reading the story, apply what you have learned to properly categorize each of the following terms into its correct factor of production land, labor, capital, entrepreneurship, or some combination of all four. The terms are in order of their appearance in the reading. Numbers 1,4,10, and 19 are completed for you as examples.

1. Assembly-line process - LABOR/CAPITAL GOODS

2. Conveyor belts-

3. Seed pods-

4. Cacao - LAND

5. Harvesting each pod-

6. Preparing seeds for transport-

7. Chocolate making factory-

8. Special formulas created by each manufacturer-

9. Large rotating ovens-

10. Heavy steel disks - CAPITAL GOODS

11. Hydraulic presses-

12. Condensed Milk-

13. Automated machines-

14. Molds-

15. Nuts or dried fruit-

16. Refrigeration units-

17. Wrapping and labeling machines-

18. Chocolatier-

19. Adding final design touches - LABOR AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

20. Hand molding designer creations-