Today would be the birthday of German confectioner Henri Nestlé if he were still alive. During his lifetime his work made huge changes to the chocolate world that we still enjoy today. Henri was born in 1814 and died in 1890. While we think of Nestlé as Swiss, Henri was born Heinrich Nestle but he immigrated from Germany to study with J.E. Stein who owned a pharmacy in Switzerland. After four years of study he was licensed in 1839.
The Nestle family business was actually a glazier company or a professional glass cutters for buildings. But after going to Switzerland and changing his name, Henri bought a rapeseeds factory and began to produce other goods as well. In 1866 the American owned company, Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, opened a branch in Cham, Switzerland. A year later, Nestlé used their product idea to create an infant formula and worked on bettering condensed milk. In 1867 Nestlé introduced their logo that they still use today.
But what does this all have to do with chocolate? As we know today, Nestlé offers
many chocolate goods but it was another man, Peter Daniel, who used their condensed milk to create milk chocolate in 1875. If I can find a birth date for Daniel, then we'll celebrate him as well in the future.
The first two images are directly from the History section of the Nestlé website: http://www.nestle.com/AboutUs/History/Pages/History.aspx
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