This Road Was Paved in Chocolate (and All of Our Willy Wonka Dreams Have Come True)

Better Homes & Gardens
A 25-person fire crew worked Monday night to clean up the liquid chocolate spill.

12/12/2018 — We may have just discovered the road to heaven. It's in Germany, and for a brief time Monday evening, it was paved in a ton of chocolate.

After a semi-sweet spill that started around 8 p.m. at the DreiMeister Chocolate Factory in Westoennen that was caused by a "small technical defect," according to an Associated Press report, the melted chocolate quickly hardened on the cold pavement. 

Related: 3 Secrets for Decadent Chocolate Desserts

It took 25 firefighters—using blowtorches and hot water pumped through high-pressure hoses—about two and a half hours to tidy up the Willy Wonka-esque "choco-pancake." A special street cleaner came to polish things up and the road was open by morning, per a translated recap from the fire department.

Firefighters in Germany tackled an unusual emergency this week after a tonne of #chocolate flowed out of a factory and solidified on the pavement. About 25 #firefighters in the town of #Werl worked to pry the chocolate off with shovels. They also used hot water and torches to remove the remaining bits from cracks and holes. "Despite this heartbreaking incident, it is unlikely that a chocolate-free #Christmas is imminent in Werl," the fire department has said. Photo: Feuerwehr Werl/via Reuters • #InstaFood #ChocolateSpill #WillyWonka #ChocolateRiver #ChocolateRoad #FoodEmergencies #FreeChocolate

A post shared by TRT World (@trtworld) on Dec 12, 2018 at 8:12am PST

Luckily, the spill happened far enough in advance of Christmas stocking stuffer season to avoid a real tragedy. DreiMeister CEO Markus Luckey confirmed to the German newspaper Soester Anzeiger that the factory would be back in order today (Wednesday). Any closer to the holiday and, "that would have been a catastrophe."