When I was a girl I used to have a number of regular day-dreams.
One favourite involved me getting accidentally locked in a chocolate factory overnight. I used to spend hours thinking about sampling all the different kinds of chocolates rolling off the conveyor belts. Would I try a soft centre first? Or perhaps a caramel? What about a truffle or a chocolate frog? How many could I possibly eat before I was sick?
Roald Dahl’s wonderful book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, did nothing to quench my imagination. On the contrary, it encouraged me to dream of rivers of molten chocolate, trees made out of candy and bubblegum that turned your whole body blue.
So when I visited Haigh’s Chocolates earlier this week for a special behind the scenes look at the factory and an interview with Alister Haigh, I was nearly beside myself with excitement.
Haigh’s Chocolates, based right here in Adelaide, is the oldest chocolate manufacturer in Australia and one of our most beloved and iconic brands. Alfred Haigh founded his namesake in 1915 when he opened a shop on Rundle Mall’s historic beehive corner. It’s been a family business ever since and brothers Alister and Simon, Alfred’s great grandsons, currently run Haigh’s as joint managing directors.
My visit today starts behind the scenes. Firstly, John Hanns, the dayshift supervisor, has me suit up in a white coat and hairnet. I’ve already been advised to wear closed toe shoes and no jewellery.
As I step onto the factory floor, the smell of chocolate is rich and intense. I breathe in deeply; I never, ever want to forget this smell.
As John shows me around the factory, he explains what all the different machines do. It’s fascinating to think that every single Haigh’s product I’ve ever eaten was made right here.
These two women are putting the final flourish to some Macadamia Honey Nougat milk chocolates.
This woman is making raspberry truffles by dipping a creamy raspberry centre into white chocolate. They will then be rolled in dark chocolate pieces to finish. Mmm.
These woman are making chocolate covered sultanas and nuts. The dried fruit and nuts are coated with chocolate in one machine before being put into another machine to be glazed and polished.
With Christmas only a couple of months away, I watch some women making Haigh’s famous Christmas pudding. The brandy truffle centre is coated with a fresh layer of dark chocolate before being iced with a white fondant to resemble cream. A hand-stamped holly sprig is then carefully placed on top.
Other Christmas best-sellng products include chocolate bells and a benevolent looking Father Christmas.
40,000 people a year visit Haigh’s factory on Greenhill Road for a free, twenty-minute factory tour. They learn how Haigh’s turns bitter cocoa beans into chocolate, enjoy some free samples, and watch chocolates being handmade like the truffles and almond clusters below. As a promotional device, the tours are genius; I defy anyone to visit the Haigh’s factory and not want to take a good proportion of the gift shop products home with them.
The time passes all too quickly and before I know it, I’m running late for my appointment with Alister Haigh.
Alister Haigh joined the family business after a couple of years working on the family farms in the Adelaide hills. He started off cleaning equipment, sweeping floors, and learning the easy recipes before moving across to the chocolate room. He spent over a dozen years working in the factory and office before becoming joint managing director with his brother when his father retired in 1990. His father is now Chairman of the Board, and makes a weekly visit to the factory.
Alister’s father, John, was instrumental in raising the quality of the chocolate made back in the 50s. “Until dad came into the business the chocolate was pretty crude, ” Alister explains. “When my great grandfather started the business there was no chocolate made in Australia – it was all imported. He bought some pretty basic equipment to start making his own chocolate to improve his margins but not having any knowledge or expertise, (the chocolate produced) was basically (as good as) you can make from reading a book. Dad decided we needed to make high quality chocolate and that’s when he decided to go to Switzerland.” His father spent around a year in Europe, spending about half that time at Lindt & Sprüngli. “He learnt the formulas and methods of making high quality chocolate and also developed the contacts to get the proper machines,” Alister says. “He then came back here and convinced my grandfather to spend a lot of money on chocolate making machines.” These machines were only replaced in the early 2000s when bigger versions were installed.
Today, Haigh’s manufacture 200 different products, including their best-selling freckles and chocolate frogs (over a million sold each year), truffles, chocolate bars, and marshmallows. Haigh’s also produce a number of products whose sales supports various charities: part proceeds of sales of their Easter Bilby support The Foundation for Rabbit Free Australia, their frogs support Amphibian Ark, their Murray Cod supports Healthy Rivers Australia and their panda range of chocolates and soft toys support the Adelaide Zoo.
Haigh’s has just launched their new single origin chocolate range featuring cocoa beans from Vanuatu, Peru and Ecuador. While Haigh’s regular chocolate is made of a blend of beans from different countries, the single origin range is designed for discerning chocoholics keen to explore the distinct flavours of each region’s cocoa beans.
Unusually for a food manufacturer, Haigh’s has no wholesale division; currently, it sells purely through its retail outlets. It has six shops in Adelaide, six in Melbourne and one in Sydney.
Haigh’s shops are serene temples of brown and gold in which products are displayed like precious jewels. I’m reminded of Holly Golightly in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s who loves the”quietness and the proud look” of the upmarket jeweller, believing that it is a place “where nothing bad could happen to you.” I feel the same way about Haigh’s.
When American media magnate Oprah Winfrey and her guests visited in Australia at the end of 2010 they were served Haigh’s truffles at a Melbourne welcome event. I wondered if this signalled Haigh’s interest in the US market. Alister says that they have dabbled in export before: Haigh’s used to send a 20-foot container to Japan every few months. However, there were issues around pricing and developing new products for a different market and they ultimately decided that export was not the right model for them. Moreover, he says, “making the same chocolate day in and day out for a week in the factory was not good for the culture. Our people like variety.”
With value adding and product diversification constant buzzwords for manufacturers and growers, I ask Alister if Haigh’s will ever open a Haigh’s cafe a.k.a. Koko Black (Melbourne and Canberra), Lindt (Melbourne and Sydney), Cocolat (Adelaide), The Chocolate Room (Melbourne and Sydney), Max Brenner (Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland and Canberra), and Guylain (Sydney). He says that they’ve considered it but decided against it for now.”It’s not our strength – we’re happy for those guys to compete amongst themselves. If you actually look at their range of chocolate, it’s very limited whereas our reputation is partly about the breadth of our range and the fact that we’ve got so many different lines. I don’t think you can do that so well in the cafe format,” he says.
So what is Alister’s favourite chocolate? Alister laughs and says his standard reply is whatever is coming off the conveyor belts when he’s wandering through the factory. Then he thinks for a moment. “If I could only have one it would have to be our apricot fruits, which my great grandfather invented. It’s a great contrast of flavours – you have the bitterness of the apricots and then the sweetness of the fondant and the fact that it has all the layers. It’s almost unique – no one else makes it and I know why: it’s because it’s so complicated. It’s very difficult to get it right,” he says.
I think it’s interesting that Alister chose his grandfather’s apricot fruit as his favourite – while he may be swayed by sentimentality in part, I think it’s the things that we achieve by blood, sweat and tears that we ultimately value the most. Perhaps it’s this attention to detail and commitment to excellence that has helped Haigh’s become the oldest and arguably most beloved chocolate manufacturer in Australia.
Future plans for Haigh’s include possibly opening more Sydney shops and launching a new website with an online shopping facility (hurrah!) early next year. So next time you’re wondering what to get the person who has everything, send them Haigh’s.
Haigh’s Chocolate Factory Tours
154 Greenhill Road, Parkside, South Australia, 5063
Tel: (08) 8372 7070 / Tours: (08) 8372 7077
Email: viscentre@haighs.com.au
Opening Hours: 8:30am -5:30pm Monday to Friday; 9:00am-5:00pm Saturdays.
