Fulton wouldn't be the same without the Nestlé Chocolate Plant. It is a major source of employment and a major contributor to our school district's tax base. The sweet smell of chocolate sets Fulton apart from its neighboring communities

The History of the Fulton Nestlé Plant

Henri Nestlé

Birth August 10, 1814 in Frankfurt, Germany   Died July 1890 in Blonay , Switzerland

Then in the early 1900's, the Nestlé chocolate company came across the Atlantic and opened it's first plant in the United States.

Located in Fulton, New York, the plant produced Nestlé's milk foods. And in 1909 he began producing chocolate. Today, Nestle chocolate products are manufactured in plants across the country.

The Fulton plant experienced major growth between 1930 and 1940. Until 1935 the cocoa was discarded because there was no use for it at the time. Nestlé researchers in the Fulton plant developed the first cocoa mix in 1935 and called it EverReady Cocoa Mix. Today, it's used to make Nestlé Quik.

One of Nestlé's most favorite confections - Crunch was introduced in 1937. When Nestlé chocolaters added crisped rice to the already popular milk chocolate and created one of America's favorite chocolate bars.

Nestlé's name has been synonymous with the very best in baking since the 1930's. When Ruth Wakefield, proprietor of the Toll House Inn cut a bar of Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate into tiny bits and added them to her cookie dough. She expected them to melt but instead, the bits of chocolate held their shape and softened just slightly into a creamy texture. And the Toll House cookie was born.

By 1940, Nestlé had purchased the rights to the Toll House Trademark and was producing ready to use semi-sweet morsels in convenient packages. Since that time Nestlé has spread the Toll House recipe on more than two billion packages and has expanded the baking products line to include morsel flavors such as milk chocolate, butterscotch, and mint as well as mini-morsels, treasures, choco-baked cocoa, and baking bars.

In 1945, the bean roasting building was expanded in order to meet the increasing demands for chocolate.

In 1948 Nestlé Quick was introduced allowing families to make their own chocolate drinks.

In 1950 the confections molding and packaging facility was build on the other side of Fay Street.

The condensery and cocoa pressing buildings were expanded because of the increasing popularity of Nestlé Quik.

In 1965 the Jensen high volume molding lines were installed in order to keep up with the increasing demands for candy bars.

The finished goods warehouse was completed in 1975 allowing us to improve our distribution network.

In order to keep up with the demands and improve the quality of our products, the refining and conching operations were modernized in 1979.

In 1990, the co-generation plant was constructed to make the steam and cooling operations more efficient as well as handle future demands.

In October of 1993, construction began on our new confections facility. A whole new building had to be constructed in order to house the state of the art molding and packaging equipment.

The new confections facility pumped it's first chocolate in February, 1995. The molding and packaging capacity is large enough to produce enough Crunch bars to supply the US and Canada.

For nearly 100 years the Nestlé Chocolate & Confection Plant in Fulton has been one of the largest manufacturers and employers in Central New York. Over 200 million pounds of America's favorite chocolate products were produced in 1995 alone!