Fazer Chocolate Factory Tour
- Cat
- Jul 21, 2017
- 4 min read
One of the things that I've loved about Finland is the different kinds of chocolate I can find. Our grocery store has an entire aisle of JUST CHOCOLATE bars. They come from all over, are brands you recognize, and others you don't. Fazer is the Finnish chocolatier, and ranks number one for the Finns when asked which chocolate they prefer. Personally, I like the Swedish chocolate brands Marabou and La Praline best. We had tried Fazer chocolate from Finland during our time here and while it wasn't our favorite, it is pretty good.
When I heard about the chocolate tour at the Fazer Factory in Vantaa (just outside Helsinki), I knew we had to go. We really enjoyed our tour at Hershey, and hoped this tour would live up to the comparison. You can read about our time at Hershey here.
We checked online before leaving the house, and discovered there is only one English tour daily, so we planned our trip for that time. PRO TIP: It might be wise to purchase tickets online in advance for your tour. We didn't, and almost didn't get to do the English tour - which would have really been a bummer as we learned a lot. We didn't think the tour would be very busy since it wasn't a holiday weekend, but we were wrong, the place was packed!
The tour began with a brief history of Karl Fazer, the Finnish founder of the brand. He received the (Swiss) recipe into his family as a thank you for taking care of a sick boy in 1922. The same recipe is used today and the Fazer Blue chocolate bar is part of Finland's national identity. The Fazer company is the oldest family-owned chocolate company in the world - as it is still run by descendants of Karl.
After the history lesson, we were shuffled into a small greenhouse atrium housing many of the ingredients used in Fazer chocolates including cocoa trees, vanilla vines, oranges, and more.
We moved to an area with modern goggles you could pull from the ceiling. When looking into the goggles, you were transported to various parts of the chocolate production process, from the mill to the shipping facility to the packaging plant. The images in the goggles were almost virtual reality and as you turned, the image changed so you could see the facility you were standing in from all angles. They also had a 3D chocolate printer with samples of the items it had made.
Moving on, we learned about the bakery where they make bread, and the special braiding Fazer loaves are known for. We learned about the family and how they named each product and saw original packaging samples. We also learned about the various stages of the manufacturing process. There were also virtual reality goggles you could wear to walk through the factory (since they don't let you actually go into it - for hygienic reasons).
Overall the tour was really well done. I wish they had shown you an actual part of the factory - Hershey has created a glassed off portion of their factory - as this makes it much more real. But, what it lacked in authenticity regarding the factory tour, it MORE than made up for in the tasting area.
Once the tour finishes, you are left in the tasting area, an open playground of nearly every form of candy made by Fazer. You are allowed to try anything and eat AS MUCH AS YOU WANT! The only rule is that you cannot take anything with you. Sadly, despite this, I still saw people stuffing their purses - really people? You need 3€ worth of chocolate that badly?
All the candy was full size, and I don't know how they deal with all the waste - there were certainly some bars we threw away after one bite each. We tried to share everything we opened so as not to waste much, but there was still a big portion of the things we opened we didn't care for.
Our favorites were: Marianne (the red one), Fazer creamy milk chocolate, Fazer milk chocolate with strawberries and vanilla, Fazermint, Geisha, and Patkis. Our least favorites were: Fazer milk chocolate with popcorn, Jim, Fazerina, Pihlaja, and Panterri.
Click through the gallery below to view images from the tour.
After eating a bellyful of candy (probably only about 5€ worth as they don't allow you to drink so you think you can eat a lot more than you actually do), we exited the area and were handed a gift bag full of goodies! As if you didn't eat enough. You then meander through the gift shop where you can buy any Fazer product you've heard of, at a significant discount. If you're lucky, they may even have a few Mignon's left over for purchase (from Easter).
This tour used to be free, but since the construction of the new visitor's center, the tour is now 12€ per adult. It is worth it. Buses stop right in front of the visitor's center, so even if you don't have a car, you can get to the attraction. Our opinion: it's worth the stop.
Have you been to the new Fazer Experience? What did you think? Have you been before the new visitor's center opened?
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