Founder of 'Chocolatier Goossens' releases his own “De Chocolade Codex”.

The business has been operational for fifty years, and that’s a cause for celebration. René
Goossens, founder of Chocolatier Goossens, is releasing his own “De Chocolade Codex”. “I worked on it for three years.” A chat with the elder statesman of chocolatiers and his son, Erik.

”These are red-letter days, and that won’t change until the end of the year,” says René Goossens.

Things are busy at the ‘traditional’ Chocolatier Goossens, three weeks before the feast of St Nicholas and Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). Founder of business and ‘chocologist’ René Goossens is not just releasing his life’s work, “De Chocolade Codex”, through publisher Davidsfonds – behind the scenes all efforts are also being devoted to finishing the last of the St Nicholases, Piets and marzipan tangerines. “These are red-letter days, and that won’t change until the end of the year,” says René Goossens. He clutches his book. ”I devoted three years to it, day after day. It is my life’s work. The cherry on top. I have created a complete book on chocolate – history and explanations are padded with recipes.’ His son, Erik, who took over the business 17 years ago, looks proudly at his father.

“This time it had nothing to do with me. I only guided him with the photos and the commercial aspect. Nothing more.” The book includes mouth-watering chocolate menus - but a recipe for the perfect chocolate St Nicholas there isn’t. “In principal, you can make the little figures yourself with the right chocolate and the perfect mould, but because the correct temperatures cannot be respected, the whole thing would collapse quickly.”
“Creating chocolates is a specialised craft, and that is most evident when the chocolates and the figures are cast in the studio behind the shop on the Isabellalei in Antwerp. It’s a full-time job for nine people, with four in the less-intense periods.

St Nicholas on a bike

”We currently have additional staff to deal with the large quantity of orders,” says Erik. Three to five weeks prior to the arrival of St Nicholas, companies and individuals order two tons of chocolate. Given the fact that we still work according to traditional methods, we can only process 20 kilograms a day. All the eyes, hats and pants are sprayed on afterwards. Furthermore, everything is cast in two layers to make the product extra crisp. “We are not dealing with real St Nicholas trends.” We have some thousand different moulds and so we can create a wide variety, but what people want is pretty standard. They all want a chocolate St Nicholas and Black Pete. Some companies want something exceptional – banks occasionally order a bag of money. Over the last few years an increasing number of people have wanted a St Nicholas on a bike instead of on the traditional horse. Tastes also remain respected. “White, milk and fondant. Traditional and nice. But we continue to work with a special Callebaut chocolate mixture that is exclusively ours.”

For Chocolatier Goossens, the feast of St Nicholas is not the biggest for them. “Easter is bigger. We are under the impression that the demand is stagnating and the traditions are disappearing – it could also simply be that parents are going to supermarkets to buy cheaper and less-delectable sweets.” It goes without saying that only the best is reserved for his own son, who is now 4-and-a-half. “He’s a chocoholic. We’re going to have to keep a close eye on him this time of the year.”