Michel Cluizel

French bean to bar chocolate manufacturer

Michel Cluizel is a bean to bar chocolate making company that was founded in the French town of Damville in Normandy in 1948 by Marc Cluizel.

The company was founded when Michel Cluizel's parents Marc and Marcelle Cluizel expanded their pastry business into making chocolate from their own family kitchen. Later in 1948, Michel became an apprentice in his parents' business. Their first export order came in 1981, as they dispatched products to the United States and they opened their first shop in Paris in 1987. In 1999 Cluizel launched the Noble Ingredients program; a commitment to use high quality ingredients and eliminate use of artificial flavors and colors, soy lecithin and GMO ingredients. The company has 200 employees, including the four children of the owner and name sake of the company. Michel Cluizel owns a store on Rue Saint Honoré in Paris. In August 2004, the company opened a subsidiary in the United States –including a manufacturing facility and a museum– in West Berlin, New Jersey. In 2002 the Cluizel family opened a chocolate museum in Damville. A decade later another museum opened near the U. S. factory.

Michel Cluizel chocolates are distributed through a network of retailers, as well as at the factory in Damville and in five company owned stores under the name Petite Manufacture Cluizel (formerly Les Chocolats Michel Cluizel). There are four in Paris: 201, rue Saint Honoré (opened in 1987); 43 Rue des Belles Feuilles; Pl. Louis Armand Galerie des Fresques; and 3, rue Tronchet; one in Neuilly sur Seine at 10, rue Madeleine Michelis; and one in New York City, opened in 2009 on Madison Avenue and 35th Street.

In 2012 Michel Cluizel products obtained the Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant (‘Living Heritage Company’) label, a French government certification granted to traditional industries that successfully reconcile artisanship with modern manufacturing methods while maintaining production in France.