A Visit to the Chocolate Factory

On Wednesday, the Year 4’s had the fantastic opportunity to visit Zotter Chocolate Factory in Pudong.  The trip acted as an Entry Point into our new International Primary Curriculum Topic - Chocolate.  The aim of the trip was to get the students enthused about the learning that would occur for the rest of the term.  The chocolate factory proved to be very educational and entertaining as the tour included learning about how chocolate is made.

Amazingly, the daughter of the owner of the factory, Julia Zotter was present at the factory and gave us some amazing insight to the wonderful world of chocolate.  Children learned about where cocoa beans are sourced, the process of turning the cocoa beans into chocolate and they even got to design their own chocolate bars!  This was all topped off with being able to taste as much as we wanted of the 250 different kinds of chocolate there was on offer!

Year 4 thoroughly enjoyed the trip to Zotter Chocolate Factory and definitely returned to school with a deeper understanding of Chocolate and happy dreams of all the delicious chocolates they tasted on the day!

Feedback from the students include:

Sania Rizvi 4A – "I learned that the cocoa beans have to be roasted after they are fermented to bring out their flavor!"

Angelina Malik 4A – "I didn’t know that some chocolate can be spicy and is flavored with chili!" 

Vika Kholodenko 4A – "Cocoa beans area actually very healthy for you and have lots of nutrients and vitamins in them!"

Sophie Tsui 4B – "What I enjoyed most was tasting and making my own chocolate!"

Cameron Watson 4B – "I learned that the more chocolate you eat – the more you can eat later! You build Chocolate endurance!"

Yoshi Yamada 4B – "I learned that to make chocolate you have to start from the Cocoa Bean and that they are very bitter!"

Happy Liang 4C – "After you pick the cocoa beans, you have to go through a stage called fermentation where you leave them in a box covered with banana leaves for 10 days.  This brings the flavor out!"

Emily McCullough 4C – "Fertilizer is made of cocoa bean shells and cow dung to help the cocoa plant grow!"

Danika Richards 4C – "90% - 100% Dark chocolate does not have sugar or milk in it!"