Coenraad Johannes van Houten (15 March 1801 – 27 May 1887) was a Dutch chemist and chocolate maker known for the treatment of cocoa mass with alkaline salts to remove the bitter taste and make cocoa solids more water-soluble; the resulting product is still called "Dutch process chocolate".

At that time, cocoa beans were ground into a fine mass, which could then be mixed with milk to create a chocolate drink or, with addition of sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla, made into cookies.

In 1828, Casparus van Houten Sr. (and not his son, who is usually credited)[1] patented a method for pressing the fat from roasted cocoa beans.

In 1838, the patent expired, enabling others to produce cocoa powder and build on Van Houten's success, experimenting to make new chocolate products.

As early as 1899, Van Houten produced a commercial film that depicted a sleepy clerk who recovers miraculously after eating some chocolate.

The Van Houten brand name, still in use, has been transferred several times since, in 1990 from the German chocolate manufacturer Jacobs Suchard to Philip Morris.

wrote Vladimir Mayakovsky in his poem, A Cloud in Trousers, referencing an urban legend about a publicity trick by Van Houten company: paying a condemned man to shout their slogan directly before being hanged.

[10] A Van Houten's Cocoa shop can be seen during the opening battle sequence of Neil Jordan's 1996 film Michael Collins.