While not a chocolate manufacturer, Jean Neuhaus and his family contributed significant developments for chocolatiers.
1857 saw the ambitious Swiss, Jean Neuhaus, leave his native city of Nechatel and set himself up in Brussels Belgian. With his brother-in-law, a pharmacist, he opened his “first pharmaceutical confectioners” at 25-27 Galerie de la Reine, Europe’s first covered shopping gallery.
Jean Neuhaus and brother-in-law made cough sweets, liquorice for stomach complaints and a bitter belgian chocolate bar.
Meanwhile, Jean’s son Frederic, learned the art of confectionery and joined his father’s blossoming “confectioners” which was fast becoming famous across the city. Both devoted themselves to producing caramels, jellied fruits and vanilla chocolate.
The pharmaceutical products gradually disappeared and the old pharmacy became the finest confectionery in Brussels. In 1895, the name of the business was changed to “Confiserie et Chocolaterie NEUHAUS-PERRIN”.
The chocolate store grew within the family hands and in 1912, Jean Neuhaus, the grandson of the founder, created the first bite-sized filled chocolate and named it praline. The Belgian Praline is born. This new technique created a revolution in the chocolate making business.
His wife, a few years later invented the ballotin, the iconic luxury box used to package fine chocolates. The precious handmade pralines could now nestle alongside one another in covered layers. The practical gold and green packaging with its embossed letter “N” has barely changed to the present day.
To Jean Neuhaus’s credit, his confectionery became of such note that a royal visit was made at the end of the war in 1918 by the young Prince Leopold and the Prince of Wales. They had apparently stopped in to try a new praline that was the rave of the day.
Since 1991, the Neuhaus Company has been the market leader in the luxury praline sector in Belgian and Luxembourg. It has an international network of nearly 2,000 sales outlets and more than 2400 tons of Neuhaus products are sold annually in 50 countries.
In 2000 His Majesty King Albert II, after the Royal Festival, bestowed upon Neuhaus the title of Accredited Supplier to the Belgian Crown.
