COMPANY PROFILE RENE REY SWISS CHOCOLATES LTD.(Rene Rey Chocolates Ltd.) was established in North Vancouver, B.C. in 1974. The owner and founder, Mr. Rene Rey, was born in Switzerland and has been active in the chocolate business since 1957. His family business has a long, traditional history in chocolate manufacturing in Switzerland and was well known for outstanding quality products. Rene Rey was educated in Switzerland and achieved high standing diplomas in the confectionary industry. He was a member of the Swiss Masters Confectioners Association and had many years of international experience in the chocolate industry in Sweden, England, Switzerland and Canada.

Rene Rey and his family have attended many major international food exhibitions with great success. Amongst them, the Rey family won seven gold medals for outstanding confectionary products in 1954 (Hospes Exhibitions, Berne, Switzerland) and in 1964(Swiss National Exhibition, Lausanne, Switzerland).

The original intention to start a chocolate business in Vancouver was to manufacture a different, high quality product previously only available through imports. In order to achieve this quality objective, the finest bulk chocolate for manufacturing purpose had been imported from Switzerland. This method was used until 1989 when Rune Rey decided to purchase refining and conching chocolate equipment to manufacture his own quality chocolate. The highest quality cocoa raw materials from West Africa and milk ingredients from Canada and Switzerland are used to make a unique blend of milk chocolate.

In 1975, Rene Rey created the first maple leaf chocolate in Canada which since has become a trade mark for Canadian chocolate. The same year, the company also manufactured the first liqueur filled chocolates in North America. International brand name liqueurs like Cointreau from France and Luxardo from Italy, are among the assortment of liqueur chocolates available today. The company is exporting chocolates to the United States and other countries since 1975; export sales to Japan started in 1978 and have since become its largest export market. Due to the geographical location of the company, exporting to the Pacific Rim countries is of special interest, and it is one of the company's objective to manufacture quality products most suitable to the Asian taste with lower sugar content.

Present daily manufacturing capacity is up to 3,000 kg of chocolate products. The manufacturing premises and property, about 20.000 square feet, are company owned. The company has acquired the newest machinery available to the chocolate industry for manufacturing high quality chocolate products. The plant operates automated molding lines, new chocolate refining equipment and high speed packaging machinery. For specialty items, like Maple Syrup cookies, a bakery department is also in operation since 1976.

New lines which have been introduced in the 1990's include the Sun, Moon, StarsR range of products and the Maple Sugar Chocolates and Cookies which are very popular products in North America and Japan. 'Nature CanadaTM' is another new company name brand promoting products with all natural ingredients.

Private label co-packing has remained as part of the business since the 70's, we have extensive experience in package design and new product development to suit each customers needs.