A melt-in-the-mouth travel companion: six facts about SWISS chocolate

Whether you are on a short trip or a weeks-long journey to a faraway country, our cabin crew will always hand you a SWISS Schöggeli at the end of your flight. This sweet treat is simply part and parcel of a SWISS flight.  There is a lot of history behind chocolate. Here are six interesting facts.

#1 Who is behind SWISS Schöggeli?

On every SWISS flight you will receive a red SWISS Schöggeli from us. But who makes these sweet temptations? Since 2015, our Schöggeli have been produced in Buchs in the canton of Aargau under the Chocolat Frey brand by Migros subsidiary Delica AG. The manufacturer knows a lot about the chocolate business. The Frey brand has been delighting chocolate lovers since 1887.

Chocolat Frey was originally founded by brothers Robert and Max Frey. One of the brothers had already gained experience in the chocolate business before the family business was founded. Robert was trained in a chocolate factory and worked for the machine factory Riccard & Greiss, specialising in the manufacture of chocolate production machines. Brother Max also trained as a businessman. He worked for Cramer-Frey in Zurich and later for the company in Brazil. The brothers took their first steps in chocolate production at their parents' home in Aarau.  

 

#2 Back to the source: where the ingredients come from

SWISS Schöggeli are produced locally in the Buchs AG factory. However, the cocoa beans do not come from local gardens. Delica uses a blend of cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Ghana and Madagascar for SWISS Schöggeli. The cocoa for SWISS Schöggeli is Fairtrade certified by the Rainforest Alliance.  This means that the cocoa comes from sustainable production that guarantees fair working conditions for suppliers and producers.  

 

#3 Our Schöggeli in numbers

It is important to us that every guest receives a Schöggeli on the flight. That's why we always pack more Schöggeli than there are passengers on the flight.  On average, more than 54,000 Schöggeli are distributed every day on SWISS flights, whether in SWISS First or Economy, on short-haul or long-haul flights. Our Schöggeli are not large. 61 mm x 34 mm x 6 mm, to be precise, and they weigh 14 grams. In 2024, we received 19 393 920 Schöggeli from the Buchs production facility. That's the equivalent of almost 500 pallets of chocolate.  This does not include our special edition. This is the subject of the next section.

"On average, more than 54'000 Schöggeli are distributed every day on SWISS flights."

 

#4 Dark chocolate with a touch of orange

Are you more of a creature of habit when it comes to chocolate or do you like to discover new flavours? We didn't just change the packaging of our Schöggeli in December. During the Advent season, we served dark chocolate Schöggeli with an orange flavour on SWISS flights. The SWISS product team worked with Delica to test many different flavours - including cinnamon - before achieving this delicious result.  The special edition was so well received by our guests that we can well imagine serving new flavours on board for selected promotions in the future.  Nevertheless, the classic SWISS Schöggeli remains the undisputed favourite and has become an integral part of our flights.

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#5 Our chocolate inspires in every form

It has four corners and tastes incredibly good, but our traditional Schöggeli, which has been served on SWISS flights since the very beginning, also comes in different sizes. The 14-gram Schöggeli, which we serve on all our flights, has a little brother that weighs just seven grams. This Schöggeli is mainly served with coffee in the SWISS lounges and in SWISS Business on board.  The large 100-gram chocolate bar, on the other hand, could be described as the seldom-seen aunt. They are only available on rare occasions, for example as a surprise. Regardless of its form, one thing is true of all SWISS chocolate: it cannot be bought - it is closely associated with the travel experience.

 

#6 Chocolaty comparisons

We've already mentioned it. We need a lot of Schöggeli from Buchs AG every week to give our guests a little chocolate present. The chocolate is delivered several times a week to Gate Gourmet at Zurich Airport. The 19,393,920 Schöggeli that will be delivered to us in 2024 will weigh 271.5 tonnes. That's about 1.5 times the empty weight of an A330 or about 68 African elephants.  And we have done a little more maths. If you were to line up all the SWISS Schöggeli that we will be handing out to our guests in 2024, they would stretch roughly the distance between Zurich and Valencia - or 1183 kilometres.