Stunning images reveal how chocolate is made

The chocolate industry, a steadily growing, $50 billion-a-year worldwide business centered on the sale and consumption of chocolate, is prevalent on five out of seven continents, according to chocolatesource.com.

Big Chocolate, as it is also called, is essentially an oligopoly between major international chocolate companies in Europe and the US. These US companies, such as Mars and Hershey's alone, generate $13 billion a year in chocolate sales and account for two-thirds of US manufacturers, says globalexchange.org.

Let's take a look at how chocolate is manufactured around the world.

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Chocolate chips at Barry Callebaut factory in Lebbeke, Belgium.

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A worker at Barry Callebaut factory inspects liquid chocolate in Lebbeke, Belgium.

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Liquid chocolate at Barry Callebaut factory in Lebbeke, Belgium.

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Chocolate is filled into round moulds in the Brandt chocolate manufacture in Landshut, Germany.

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An employee moves scrap of chocolate Santa Claus figures in a melt machine at the Brandt chocolate manufacture in Landshut, Germany.

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An employee places chocolate Santa Claus figures in the packaging machine at the Brandt chocolate manufacture in Landshut, Germany.

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Santa Claus figures are pictured in the Brandt chocolate manufacture in Landshut, Germany.

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A chocolate-maker at La Maison du Chocolat spreads chocolate in preparations for Easter creations at their workshop in Nanterre, near Paris, France.

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Belgian chocolate-maker Christine Scholtes-Covic smiles while making chocolates in her Lika Chocolate workshop in the village of Rakovica, in the Croatian region of Lika, some 150km south of Zagreb.

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Stephanie Ault, an employee of Mast Brothers Chocolate, takes chocolate bars out of moulds at the company's factory in the Brooklyn borough of New York.

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Conor Hagen, an employee of Mast Brothers Chocolate, hand grinds cacao beans at the company's factory in the Brooklyn borough of New York.

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An employee places almonds on pralines at the plant of Swiss chocolate producer Lindt & Spruengli AG in Kilchberg near Zurich.

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Employee put pralines in boxes at the plant of Swiss chocolate producer Lindt & Spruengli AG in Kilchberg near Zurich.

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A worker monitors liquid chocolate at PT Bumitangerang Mesindotama, Indonesia's third-largest cocoa grinder, in Tangerang, West Java.

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Workers oversee a chocolate line at the Harry & David factory in Medford, Oregon, United States.

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Toblerone factory in Bern, Switzerland.

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Dietmar Muthenthaler, right, Demel's head confectioner, watches a colleague covering a Sachertorte with liquid chocolate in Vienna, Austria.

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A Belarussian worker displays chocolate Easter eggs at Kommunarka factory in Minsk.

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An advertising display for Svitoch chocolates at a shop in downtown Kiev, Ukraine.

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A worker checks chocolates on a production line at Konya Seker Sugar Factory in Cumra, a small town about 50km south of the central Anatolian city of Konya in Turkey.

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A worker shows a bar of chocolate at Monggo Chocolate factory in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

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An employee uses a magnifying glass to check samples of M&M's candies at the production line of candy and chocolate maker Mars Chocolate France's plant in Haguenau, eastern France.

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A chocolate bar at Barry Callebaut factory in Lebbeke, Belgium.

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Bars of Mast Brothers Chocolate are hand-wrapped at the factory in the Brooklyn borough of New York.

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A worker dumps white chocolate into a melting bin at the Harry & David factory in Medford, Oregon, United States.

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Workers pack the traditional Toblerone chocolate in the Toblerone factory in Bern, Switzerland.

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Employees work in a chocolate factory in the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep.

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A confectioner of Hotel Sacher brushes Sachertorte in a cake factory in Vienna, Austria.

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Women take photos of love messages added to a large heart-shaped chocolate piece made in Romania by a local factory near Bucharest.