The Imhoff Foundation
In December 2000, Hans Imhoff established the charitable Imhoff Foundation. In doing so, he turned his desire to do good in his home town into reality.
Sprüngli anno 1900: cargo bikes and the expensive chocolate of yesteryear
When chocolate was still a treasure: Sprüngli cargo bikes and their animal guardians
What could be so valuable that you would let a large, impressive guard dog protect it? - The answer is chocolate. Yes, chocolate is becoming more expensive again right now, but we are a long way from having to pay the prices that people paid for chocolate over 100 years ago.
Cargo bikes through the ages: from transportation aid to trend object
But let's start at the beginning: Cargo bikes weren't invented to transport Amazon parcels around the city, even if that's what it seems like in many big cities right now. Rather, cargo bikes are experiencing a kind of rebirth. Around 1900, they played a similar role in road transport as they do today. The Sprüngli company from Zurich, for example, used cargo bikes to deliver its chocolate to various stores, cafés and hotels. And this is where the dog comes in. Around 1900, chocolate was still a very expensive luxury and an unguarded bicycle full of delicious chocolate...quickly taking advantage of the moment when the chocolate was delivered to the store...the guard dog made it very clear to people that they had better not even think about getting close to the box of chocolate.
Sprüngli's solution: cargo bikes and guard dogs for safe transportation
Sprüngli's messengers were therefore strictly forbidden to cycle off without a dog. Sounds like a story from another time, and it is. At the same time in Cologne, the so-called "Stollwerck girls" earned 10 pfennigs an hour working in the Cologne chocolate factory. For these 10 pfennigs, you could buy a small bar of chocolate weighing 20g! 20g of chocolate for an hour's work!
Let's compare this with today's minimum wage and say that you would still have to work 5 hours for 100g of chocolate. A 100g bar of chocolate would then cost over €60! So it's no wonder that a whole cargo bike full of chocolate was a real treasure.
Will the chocolate soon go into the vault?
Let's hope that we can do without guard dogs in the next few years despite rising prices. Or that chocolate is kept on locked shelves in supermarkets. Otherwise we'll soon be hearing regular announcements: "One key for the chocolate, one key for the chocolate please!"
Sounds more like a nightmare. But the cargo bike with guard dog also shows that perhaps we shouldn't always wish for the "good old days" to return.
So, what are you waiting for? Come and have a look at the cargo bike in our new exhibition! Get it in our webshop and book a guided tour, a tasting or a chocolate course directly!
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This post was written by:
Olaf Vortmann
My name is Olaf and I have been working for the Chocolate Museum since 2002. As a museum educator, I am responsible for our guided tours and tastings. That's very practical, because it's hard for me to imagine life without chocolate. But my annual consumption remains a secret!
