Zotter ‘Squaring the Circle’ Wild Berry Coconut with Date Sugar

Zotter chocolates rely on quality, variety, creativity, sustainability and are 100% organic and fair trade.

Zotter ranks among the best chocolatiers in the world.

• Zotter stand for quality, variety, creativity, sustainability
• 100% Organic, Fair and Bean-to-Bar
• Internationally considered one of the most innovative chocolate makers and trendsetters in the industry
• We carry around 300-400 different chocolate varieties in our range
• Zotter Chocolates is recognized among the top 25 best chocolate producers in the world according to the Chocolate Tester Georg Bernardini
• 2017 Zotter was celebrating 30 years in business!
• Winner of international awards - like 15 awards 2016, 5 awards 2017 and 11 awards 2018 at The Academy of Chocolate Awards in London, Bronze in the category “Best Dark Chocolate” out of 200 international entries at the NW Chocolate Festival in Seattle in November 2017, 5 international Chocolate Awards in Summer 2018
• Country of origin of our products is Austria.
• Plus, each bar of chocolate is a work of art - thanks to Zotter’s genius artist -Andreas H. Gratze who designs all the packaging and other artwork.

Variety and creativity

Zotter focuses on innovation. It’s important for Zotter to offer a wide and varied range of products – from classics like Butter Caramel and Raspberry to eccentric creations like Bread Break, created with bread schnapps made from organic bread leftovers. We offer more than 400 different chocolate varieties. Zotter typically introduce between 30 and 70 new products per year. And who comes up with all those amazing ideas? Josef Zotter of course, although lately he’s had quite a bit of help from his daughter Julia, the other creative mind in the family business.

Experiments are Zotter's passion and they use their own in-house bean-to-bar factory to develop new ideas and products. Like those bright, fruity chocolates – their stunning colors and flavors derived entirely naturally from fruit alone – or those sweet little chocolate light bulbs in all different flavors and colors.

Since the very beginning, the great artist friend Andreas H. Gratze has created a unique, individual design for each of Zotter's chocolate bars and those little pieces of art turn each choc into a first-rate gift.

A wide range instead of the same old stuff – Zotter does it like Mother Nature, the products focus on variety and lots of surprises. We offer everything from Zotter's hand-scooped chocolate cult hits to pure single origin chocolates, drinking chocolates, pralines, couvertures up to hand-made Biofekt organic bonbons.

Chocolate - bean-to-bar

At the Riegersburg-based chocolate factory, Zotter produces their own chocolates, bean-to-bar. It’s all made in-house, from the fragrant cocoa bean to the finished chocolate bar. They roast, grind, mill and conch in small batches, all individually fine-tuned to each cocoa variety. The Riegersburg location employs 185 people who produce fresh chocolate every day and also take care of all the other things our factory requires.

New FAIR logo
At the beginning of the 2018/19 season, Zotter resigned the Fairtrade certification and have applied a FAIR “hand sign” as the new logo. Zotter is a member of the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO), and they certify their entire business according to their guidelines, which enables them to distance themselves from the mass balance supply chain system used in the Fairtrade structure. They continue to focus on 100% fair trade and physical traceability and transparency of all their raw materials. Josef Zotter explains: “I continue to believe that Fairtrade is a good idea – it’s definitely better than the absence of any regulation, but I want my customers to be able to buy a chocolate that contains exactly what it says on the wrapper.”

Fine flavor cocoa from the best cocoa growing regions in the world
They mainly buy their cocoa in Latin America, the cradle of cocoa. They get their fine flavour cocoa from various different countries like Peru, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Panama, Ecuador, Guatemala, Brazil, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Madagascar, Togo and Congo. Each chocolate contains a piece of history – from Belize’s Maya cocoa to cocoa from Panama and Peru, cultivated by indigenous tribes in the middle of the rain forest, who use it to safeguard their traditional way of life, to cocoa from Nicaragua, transported by sailboat: for the first time in 20 years, a sail cargo ship landed at Hamburg port, carrying Zotter's cocoa. It was transported entirely emission-free and completely sustainable by the Brigantes and Timbercoast crews. Fairly traded organic cocoa from small farms, cultivated using crop rotation: this means delicious flavor but also the preservation of cultures – human and plant.

Zotter buys their cocoa directly from the farmers, pay way above the world market price and support them continuously, so they stick with quality and fine flavor cocoa varieties like Criollo, Trinitario, Nacional and Nativo and are therefore no longer dependent on the world market, which trades chiefly in bulk cocoa. Zotter often travels to their cocoa growing regions in order to meet their cocoa farmers and conversely, they invite them over to visit our factory. Great interpersonal relationships make for a very special product quality. In the summer of 2018, Julia Zotter spent 3 weeks in Peru to visit the cocoa farmers and look in on their social campaign project, “Chocolate for School”.

Transparency and sustainability

If you want to learn how chocolate is produced, you can visit Zotter's Chocolate Theater and see first-hand how cocoa beans are turned into delicious chocolate, how hand-scooped chocolates are filled and everything else there is to know about chocolate making.

Zotter only use organic and fairly traded raw materials because it’s better for the environment as well as us humans! As a producer, they feel it’s their responsibility to be sustainable and create added value instead of aiming towards the highest profit margin and thereby using and abusing our environment and the people they work with. Their chocolate factory counts among the most sustainable businesses in Austria and has also gained an EMAS certificate: external environmental experts assessed the production life cycle and the environmental goals and found them exemplary. Zotter's entire production runs on clean power, a considerable part of which they produce themselves with a gigantic solar power system. They use electric vehicles and their canteen cooks an organic menu for our employees fresh every single day, using ingredients from Zotter's Edible Zoo and their organic farm, both of which are located right next to our factory and are open to the public. Organic all around.

Family business

Zotter founded their family business in 1987, went bankrupt and reopened it in 1999 as a chocolate factory on Josef's parents’ farm, as it was the cheapest location for a new start. At this point, even their children Michael and Julia are employed by their business. Julia Zotter built the chocolate theater in Shanghai and ran it for three years. Now she’s back with them in Austria and develops new products together with her father Josef Zotter. Michael has a head for technology, which is why he is responsible for IT, facilities and our online shop. Their youngest daughter Valerie is their main taster at the moment but does not have veto rights, because otherwise they’d produce nothing but white chocolate.

Zotter Schokoladen - Austria from The High Five Company on Vimeo.

Zotter Schokoladen

Bergl 56
8333, Riegersburg
Austria
https://www.zotter.at