Every significant step in the company’s 25-year existence bears the mark of family, beginning with the Jacobs dynasty in Bremen, Germany and currently extending to over 12,000 individuals across 40 countries around the world, who consider themselves members of the Barry Callebaut Family. At the very center of this quarter-century milestone is the foresight and relentless passion of Klaus Jacobs (1936-2008), the man who dared to forge international connections around a love for chocolate. After all, who doesn’t like good chocolate?

“Klaus was an entrepreneur, a risk-taker. He wasn’t shy of taking risks,” recounts Patrick De Maeseneire, who’s been chairman of Barry Callebaut’s Board of Directors since December 2016. As the company’s CEO from 2002 to 2009, he’s well acquainted with Klaus Jacobs’ intention to pioneer Barry Callebaut as a leading chocolate outsourcing partner of local and multinational food companies. “It was his idea, and at that time, he was the only one in the B2B chocolate market who had that vision. He anticipated that other companies would no longer produce chocolate themselves because of the complicated, costly value chain and different recipes.” This notion definitely paid off. Today, Barry Callebaut is proudly present in 1 out of 4 of the world’s chocolate and cocoa products through its global brands.

For someone so focused on accomplishing the extraordinary, it is easy to assume that Klaus saw nothing but the “big picture”. Yet the man Patrick remembers was one who took particular interest in the people and culture of Barry Callebaut. “Klaus always was in favour of small headquarters, so there were only a couple of levels between the CEO and management team and their other colleagues, just to keep that entrepreneurial spirit. Of course, the bigger the company became, the more difficult it was to keep that spirit, but he would always push that kind of family feeling. Klaus was somebody who went beyond Zurich to see people. He did it for a human touch to business, but he also did it to learn about the company. He was also very loyal to people who had been in the company for a long time and always defended them, because he really considered them as family. Klaus would invite them to his home or a restaurant for dinner. He was very close to the people of Barry Callebaut.” Similar stories are told of the ambience he established at Jacob Suchard and Adecco.

What else would Klaus Jacobs be proud of when it comes to the BC Family? Patrick thinks the company’s global expansion and continuous pursuit of innovation and entrepreneurship would make the list. “If you go back 20 years, even to the time I started work here, it was very much a European company. After the merger with Cacao Barry, the company became more international with impressive stakes in Africa, Asia and North America. Even considering cocoa traceability and sustainability today, we would not have the factories and the people on the ground all over the world if the merger had not happened. In 2002, we had 17 factories in total and today, we have over 60 production facilities globally. Looking at all the innovation of the last couple of years, like our Ruby chocolate, and the successful execution of the company’s other pillars as its core strategy, I truly believe that this continuity has helped a lot to bring the company where it is today. A strategy or a vision without execution is hallucination, I say, and I think we have to be grateful for the 12,000 people who execute that strategy every day.”