The modern history of Szerencs is closely related to the factories of the town: the history of the sugar and chocolate factory. The success of these two factories contributed to the towns economical and cultural life, and they played a very important role in the introduction of the industrial culture in the region.
The sugarfactory began to produce in 1889, the chocolatefactory in 1923. By this time chocolate wasn't a wide spread sweet, and the factory had a limited number of machines, so it only produced chocolate bars and cocoa powder. In 1923 only fifty people worked in the factory, they produced ten waggons of goods.
The first manager of the factory was Liechti Frigyes, a foodindustrial specialist and engineer with swiss origins, who was chosen for this position by the board of directors, and was leading the factory for twenty-five years. In this period of time the products with the picture of a cat on the packaging reached worldwide fame. This was achived by the continuos improvement of the products, the packing and the technology, and the promotion and sale done in a network of representatives. Selected workforce produced first class goods from raw material of excellent quality. The production grew from year by year, and the chocolate from Szerencs was more and more famous and requested.
Before the second world war the chocolate factory in Szerencs was the biggest in the country, and it didn't lose its prestige after it was taken ower to the state either, because it produced chocolate of first-class quality untiol 1994. Szerencs is also nowdays famous for its chocolate, the Szerencsi Bonbon Kft. (Szerencs Bonbon Ltd.) is producing chocolate, and preserves and continues this tradition.
Our exhibition, which is based on the private collection of Maszler László commemorates the well known chocolate factory, its founders and workers. The exhibition discloses the history of the factory with the help of original documents and photos, and our visitors can view the objects, tools, moulds, and packing materials. There are also chocolate figures, for ex. the main caracter of a hungarian cartoon by Csukás István and Sajdik Ferenc, Gombóc Artúr, the chocolate-loving bird. The exhibition is open until the end of the Chocolate Festival in August 2014.