The world's highest, free-standing chocolate fountain in the foyer of the museum serves as the prelude to the world of chocolate. It is 9.30m high and circulates 1,000 litres of liquid chocolate, flowing from a large, hovering wire whip down into a Lindor ball on the ground.
Planned and designed by Atelier Brückner, the Chocolate Tour provides information on the origins, history and production of the mouth-watering delicacy from Kilchberg, Zurich. It shows some specific details about Switzerland and makes it possible to experience the cocoa-containing products with all the senses in an exhibition area covering 1,500 sq m.
Visitors proceed on a tour of discovery on the first floor of the building. Sounds, smells, media stations and visitor-participation systems allow them to become part of the different scenarios. Designed individually, each exhibition room communicates through the senses and with information to convey an aspect of the world of chocolate.
At first, the visitors travel to a cocoa plantation in Ghana where they learn everything about the cultivation, harvesting, fermentation and drying of cocoa beans, as well as about the quality assurance process. Being all about the 5,000 years history of chocolate, the "Chocolate History" room features a digitally animated 360° panorama picture and has a round media table in the middle. It shows how the preparation and consumption of chocolate has changed over the centuries. How Switzerland became the "home of chocolate" is conveyed in the "Swiss Pioneers" room. The first chocolate factory was opened in Vevey as early as 1819. The all-round, hand-painted Swiss panorama is an invitation to make one's own discoveries.
The subsequent time tunnel "From Past to Present" illustrates the changes in the manufacture and marketing of Swiss chocolate from 1900 until the year 2000. Visitors find this out in the "Production" room, which, with its smooth, shiny surfaces, is based on an actual factory. In this room, three chocolate springs, where the different composition of white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate can be tasted are a special attraction, and not only for young visitors.
The darkened adjacent room with the name "Chocolate Cosmos", which is surrounded by an atmospheric projection of stars, finally places chocolate as a product in a global context before visitors are taken to the "Chocolate Heaven" where they can taste a sample of Lindt products. Large-format Lindor balls supplement the narrative space. They are designed as photo booths.
Finally, the visitors cross a bridge over the foyer of the building to reach the "Innovation Lab", which opens out towards the light-filled interior. The exhibition architecture takes up the architecture of the building. This area concerns some questions about the future, whether chocolate would cease without cocoa trees altogether and if artificial intelligence will change chocolate production, and lastly how the chocolate industry can be made more carbon neutral. As soon as the visitor approaches, the initially opaque glass of the display case becomes transparent and reveals explanatory films and selected exhibits, including a replicated cell culture.
The heart of the "Innovation Lab" is a real testing system, the entire interior of which can be seen. Specialists use this system to develop new chocolate creations. Augmented animation enables an X-ray view into the insides of the machines. The Chocolate Tour ends with a chocolate souvenir; a small bar of chocolate from the testing system, packaged in a golden ball, rolls through a lovingly designed marble run before it falls into the hands of the visitor.