Chocolate

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Chocolate Change
Follow up of EIS Simulation Session
History can help us to better understand the
dynamics of change and the complexity of
managing or engineering (planning and
implementing) change processes at all levels
through the diffusion of values, beliefs and
desires, artifacts, mental habits and behaviors,
through education and development of children and
adults, through managerial interventions in
organizational contexts.   Take for instance
some of the key facts related to the History of
Chocolate gathered on a number of websites. As a
non-Swiss reader and particularly if originating
from non-sugar-dominated eating cultures, you
might wonder what Chocolate has to do with
Change. In fact, its not really about chocolate
only. Its about the process of how cocoa beans,
the core of chocolate, underwent a
transformation from being an exchange currency in
ancient South-American civilizations to become a
popular European consumer product (22 pounds per
year pro capita in Switzerland). Its about the
individuals and networks, groups, organizations
and communities that enabled this process to take
place over the centuries. Its about the role of
knowledge and technology in enabling and shaping
innovation processes and their diffusion. About
resistance factors such as knowledge retention
and exchange, rivalries, as well as planned and
unplanned synergies and collaborations.
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The Origins A totally different context

• 600 AD
• The cocoa bean is considered the ultimate status
  symbol in the Mayan and Aztec cultures. They use
  the beans as currency and those wealthy enough to
  have an excess of beans use them to make a
  chocolate drink that gives them "wisdom and
  power".
• 1000AD
• Emperor Montezuma, who no doubt possesses more
  cocoa beans than anybody else at the time is a
  "chocoholic." Montezuma, it is reported, drinks
  nothing but chocolate, particularly before
  entering his harem. He believes that the
  concoction is a powerful aphrodisiac. The Aztecs
  believed that drinking chocolate. which was the
  undiluted, unsweetened liquor from fermented
  cacao beans, would bring great wisdom,
  understanding and energy. Legend held that the
  Aztecs have convinced the dread god Quentzacoatl
  to leave them in peace by giving him gallons of
  chocolate, which was also known as Quetzacoatl.

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First Steps Things get serious, as Money grows
on Trees

• 1492
• Columbus was given some of the cacao beans and
  took them back to Spain, but he didn't know how
  to process and ferment them.
• 1502
• Columbus is the first European to discover cocoa
  beans and chocolate. But it is the Conquistadors
  that realize the value of "money that grows on
  trees". Hernando de Oviedo y Valdez writes home
  to tell of how he was able to purchase a slave
  for 100 cocoa beans. Later Hernando Cortez builds
  a cocoa plantation for the express purpose of
  growing money in the name of Spain.
• 1519
• Cortez descended upon the Aztecs and eventually
  destroyed Montezuma's armies and his capital. The
  Aztecs were convinced that Quetzacoatl had
  returned as prophesied and they tried to get him
  to leave by once again plying him with chocolate.

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Things start moving, but knowledge

• 1528
• Cortez returns to Spain with cocoa beans and the
  tools needed to make chocolate. Not that he is
  particularly fond of the concoction. In fact, he
  is said to personally have found the drink
  distasteful, probably because the Aztec method of
  preparation called for flavoring the drink with
  spices, including lots of chili. Spanish cooks
  quickly remedy that by changing the recipe,
  replacing the peppers with sugar.
• 1606
• Spain manages to keep the discovery of chocolate
  a secret for more than a century. In the
  meantime, the Spanish cultivate quite a trade in
  the popular new beverage as well as cocoa
  plantations in their equatorial colonies around
  the world . It is an Italian merchant , Antonio
  Carletti, who put in motion the process that
  breaks the Spanish monopoly of the chocolate
  trade.
• 1615
• A Spanish princess married Louis XIII of France
  and the secret got out. Chocolate spread from
  France to England, Italy, Germany, Austria and
  Switzerland.

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Penetration and First Innovations Elites and
Accidents

• 1657
• England's first chocolate house opens in London.
  Its a big hit with the upper class and soon
  becomes the place where the elite meet to sip.
  Cocoa bean prices are exorbitant and , as the
  Spanish historian Oviedo, notes "none but the
  rich and noble could afford " to frequent such
  establishments. Prices eventually drop and
  chocolate houses begin to appear throughout the
  country, challenging the primacy of coffee tea
  rooms and even pubs.
• 1671
• The personal chef to the Duke of Plesslis-Preslin
  in France watches as a panful of burnt sugar
  spills over a bowlful of almonds. One taste and
  the Duke is decidedly pleased. He's so pleased,
  in fact, that he lends his name to this new
  confection and so, the "praslin" or "praline"
  comes into being. But it took Belgian
  chocolatiers to perfect this particular treat.
  Eventually, the word praline becomes synonymous
  with a particular type of Belgian confection
  featuring a molded shell of chocolate that is
  filled with creams, caramels, light ganache and
  of course, praline.

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Going Global England, Belgium Switzerland, and
the US

• 1674
• They're still drinking chocolate throughout
  Europe, but enterprising bakers in England begin
  adding cocoa to their cake recipes making
  chocolate widely available in solid form for the
  first time. Within decades, solid chocolate
  becomes available throughout Europe in a variety
  of forms, including bars, lifting the status of
  chocolate from that of a stylish drink to that of
  a superb, sweet delicacy.
• 1697
• Belgium is already established as one of Europe's
  premier centers for the production of chocolate.
  When the mayor of Zurich pays a visit to
  Brussels, he's so taken with the taste he returns
  home with news of the savory concoction, the
  inspiration for a new Swiss industry and no doubt
  a personal supply to savor for some time to come.
  
• 1712
• By the turn of the 18th century, chocolate makes
  its way back to North America. In little more
  than a decade, Boston apothecary shops are
  advertising and selling chocolate imported from
  Europe. Soon, Massachusetts sea captains are
  bringing back cargoes of cocoa beans, and the
  chocolate trade blossoms.

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Technology steps in and de Sade dinners

• 1728
• Back in Europe chocolate factories are springing
  up but they use the same age old labor intensive
  methods to grind and churn their products.
• 1765
• American colonists crave chocolate and the demand
  prompts James Baker and John Hannon to start
  their own industrial revolution by building a
  chocolate factory that uses water power to
  mechanize the production process. Their company,
  today known as the Walter Baker Company, is one
  of the oldest still operating in the US
• 1772
• Leave it to the Marquis de Sade to rekindle the
  old chestnut about chocolate being a powerful
  aphrodisiac. He gives a ball in Marseilles and,
  as author Louis Petit de Bachaumont writes "into
  the dessert he slipped chocolate pastilles so
  good that no one failed to eat some. It proved to
  be so potent that those who ate the pastilles
  began to burn with unchaste ardor and to carry on
  as if in the grip of the most amorous frenzy."
  The story may be mythical , but the infamous
  Marquis was arrested soon after the ball was
  over.

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The Learning Curve the Dutch Treat

• 1792
• The Swiss, who today consume more chocolate per
  capita than any other nation (22 pounds, compared
  to 11 pounds per person in the US),are still
  trying to master the art of making chocolate. So,
  when the famed German author Johann Wolfgang von
  Goethe embarks on a tour of Switzerland, he takes
  no chances and packs his own chocolate and
  chocolate pot for the journey.
• 1815
• Dutch chocolate maker C.J. van Houten patented an
  inexpensive method for pressing the fat from
  roasted cacao beans. The center of the bean,
  known as the "nib" contains an average of 54
  cocoa butter, which is a natural fat. Van
  Houten's machine, a hydraulic press, reduced the
  cocoa butter content by nearly half. This created
  a "cake" that could be pulverized into a fine
  powder known as "cocoa". Van Houten treated the
  powder with alkaline salts so that the powder
  would mix more easily with water. Today, this
  process is known as "Dutching". The final
  product, Dutch chocolate, has a dark color and a
  mild taste.

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The Swiss again, and the Brits

• 1819
• One hundred twenty two years after the mayor of
  Zurich brought chocolate back with him from
  Brussels, the Swiss develop a knack for making
  chocolate and Francois Louis Cailler opens the
  first Swiss chocolate factory on Lake Geneva. Not
  to be outdone, six years later Philippe Suchard
  builds his own machine, including the world's
  first chocolate mixer, and starts making his own
  confection.
• 1847
• If J.S. Fry Sons of Bristol, founded in 1728,
  is not the oldest chocolate factory in England ,
  it certainly is its most enduring and innovative.
  In fact, one son, Joseph, had the ingenuity to
  purchase and install a steam engine in his
  factory in 1789, soon after Watt invented the
  machine. A grandson, Francis, and a great
  grandson, another Joseph. carry on the tradition
  of innovation by adopting Van Houten's process
  and press and discovering a way to combine cocoa
  powder, sugar and cocoa butter to make the first
  real chocolate bars.

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The power of Synergies Technology Moving
towards global popularity

• 1876
• The Swiss Daniel Peter was trying to add milk to
  chocolate to produce a smoother chocolate.
  However, you can't add water to chocolate, it
  makes the chocolate shrink and separate and
  generally disintegrate. Milk has water in it.
  Daniel Peter met Henri Nestle' . Nestle' had
  perfected the manufacture of condensed milk , so
  he and Peter added milk solids to chocolate and
  produced the world's first milk chocolate, as
  well as starting the Nestle' Company. Chocolate
  was still available only as cocoa or as a liquid
  at that point.
• 1879
• It was Rodolphe Lindt who thought to add cocoa
  butter back to chocolate. Adding the additional
  cocoa butter, which is essential to the modern
  manufacture of chocolate, helps the chocolate set
  up into a bar that will "snap" when broken as
  well as making it melt ont the tongue. Once they
  get started, the Swiss quickly show the world
  just how much they love their chocolate . They
  are the first to add powdered milk to the process
  and they refine the chocolate making art by
  introducing a "conching" machine that gives
  chocolate confections a smooth, creamy texture.

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The US markets, and beyond

• 1895
• America's love affair with chocolate heat up when
  Milton S. Hershey sells his first Hershey Bar in
  Pennsylvania using modern, mass-production
  techniques that make the product less expensive
  and thus available for mass consumption.
• --------------------------------------------------
  --------
• What does the story of the emergence and
  diffusion of chocolate over the centuries and
  each individual event tell us about managing
  change in organizations? Send back the attached
  ppt presentation (download it from
  http//wwwinsead.edu/eis/CC.htm) with YOUR
  annotations (hand-written or hand-typed at
  rachel.royer_at_insead.edu ). Add an annotation
  every time an event or set of events triggers an
  interesting association with what you consider
  worth knowing or understanding in managing
  change, based on your experience and insights.
• The result will be a collective ppt presentation
  On Chocolate Change. A sweet, as well as
  potentially insightful and useful compensation
  for the sometimes bitter reality we experienced
  during the EIS Simulation!

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My Slide (for whatever you might want to add)