Camera de Comert Elvetia - Romania / Chamber of Commerce Switzerland - Romania

"We cannot consider relocating the plant in Pantelimon, because strategically it's located extremely close to Bucharest, which is our most important market," says Vondenhoff.

This year, Heidi invested 1m euros to upgrade some production lines and in the following period plans to modernise the offices on the same location and open a chocolate store at the plant's entrance.

On the other hand, one of the downsides of the location is the shortage of available workforce.

Dutch-born Erwin Vondenhoff (photo) replaced Konrad Hafner, former general manager and shareholder in Heidi Chocolat Romania. Once he withdrew from the company, Hafner also sold his 14.3% stake in Swiss group Laederach. The other two important shareholders, Massimo Palumbo (7.3%) and Johann Koller (12.3%) also departed, which allowed Laederach to boost its stake in the Romanian firm to 100% this year. The Laederach family thus became the only shareholder of Heidi, a company with turnover worth 11.6m euros last year and around 300 employees.