In chocolate factory Rousseau, the Easter bunnies roll off the band according to a family recipe

Spring has just begun, but the Rousseau chocolate factory is already quietly looking forward to Sinterklaas. Or rather: to his servant. Because it is so difficult to pour in chocolate with its pleated collar that every year the necessary pete heads roll over the factory floor. Fortunately, December doesn’t start here until May and the chocolatiers can focus for a few more days on the hardest hit: the Easter bunnies, Easter chicks, large Easter eggs, stuffed Easter eggs and ordinary Easter eggs.

Here they are hung upside down in a cauldron of liquid milk chocolate like hollow plastic figures. It’s not just any chocolate, but the proven S26: founder Nico Rousseau’s original recipe. His son Guido, who succeeded him together with partner Paul Diepstraten, did reduce the sugars in the cocoa mixture a bit, but dares to say: Rousseau chocolate still tastes almost the same as 54 years ago. ‘Slightly sweeter than with my colleagues in Limburg’, he describes above a plate of Easter figures in his factory office. ‘A real piece of craftsmanship.’

peanut brittle

What is now the Rousseau chocolate factory started in 1969 a stone’s throw from Guido’s parental home in Sittard. His father had worked in the bakery since he was 12 and developed a love for chocolate. So when a local peanut rock maker went bankrupt, he saw his chance and jumped into the hole. He built a small factory in the basement, the utility room served as a point of sale and Guido’s mother as a saleswoman.

As the youngest of three children, 3-year-old Guido was regularly in the basement at that time. Next to his father on the workbench, he watched him manually dip the peanuts in the liquid cocoa, package them and leave the house in the evening to deliver the orders to wholesalers. It would of course be a great cliché that then the spark flew and it was clear that he would later succeed his father. So that didn’t happen either.

Guido and his brothers went to college and each went their own way. The succession of the ever-expanding family business was never discussed at home. ‘We didn’t feel called to,’ says Guido. ‘The company was built in the old way with a lot of manual work. My father was of a different generation, so that meant standing with your hands in the chocolate every day from 6 am to 10 pm, you have to feel like it.’

And Guido didn’t have that. However, after his studies he started to sell his father’s chocolate on Limburg markets. He just did it for a few months and then his father got sick. He knew: ‘In a year and a half I should be ready to take over here.’ During his illness, Guido occasionally took over for his father in the company. ‘I also bought some machines during that time, but he didn’t want anything to do with them.’ At the age of 28 his father died and Guido suddenly became CEO of a company with 16 employees.

Feeling family

The chocolate may still have the same recipe, but Rousseau has undeniably changed since then. Guido invested in machinery and opened shops. More importantly, he asked college friend Paul Diepstraten to become his partner – strictly genetically not Rousseau, but emotionally like family. After ‘driving for 12 years in a lease car with a two-piece or three-piece suit’, he was ready to stand with his feet in the mud, or rather: with his hands in the chocolate.

Together they turned Rousseau into a ‘large-scale family business’ that annually produces 500 thousand kilos of chocolate in 520 different products. This range has moved with the times in recent years. ‘Our chocolate Sinterklaas, for example, was a very strict old man who stood at cruising height with his hands on the shoulders of two children’, Diepstraten chuckles. “That was no longer possible.” Moreover, flavors were added, such as sea salt caramel, and flavors were also released. For example, the experiments with pepper chocolate and lavender Easter eggs showed that not every change is an improvement.

Not only did the range expand, but so did the number of points of sale. The thumbtacks on the map of Limburg and Southeast Brabant in the factory office show that Rousseau now has 24 branches, including franchises. In addition, Rousseau also supplies a lot to companies. ‘We are now faced with the choice of how far we want to grow,’ says Guido. “In principle we would like to continue for another eight years, but I am 55 and every now and then it crosses my mind: my father only turned 61.”

That does not mean that there are already discussions in the Rousseau household about the succession. On the contrary, no matter how passionate Guido and his partner are about their company, they would be more inclined to advise their children against it. ‘The chocolate industry is one in which you have to work hard for your turnover,’ says Guido. “I’ve had December days where I worked from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. I wouldn’t want to put that pressure on my children.’

Moreover, the demand for chocolate is as changeable as the weather. A good summer day with more than 23 degrees on the thermometer and turnover in Sittard tumbles down, a few drizzly days and it shoots up again. So it may just be spring, but Rousseau is already quietly looking forward to a bad summer.