11 World Famous Food Factories Worth Visiting (Slideshow)

Ice cream connoisseurs curious about how their favorite ice cream flavors like "Chunky Monkey" or "Cherry Garcia" are made can watch the flavor magic happen in a guided tour at the Ben & Jerry's factory in Vermont. Visitors are given an ice cream sample of the day and can try more flavors at the factory's scoop shop. The Flavor Graveyard is just up the hill from the factory and is available for paying respects to retired Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavors.

Chocolate "comes to life" at Cadbury World, where chocolate lovers can hop into a "Beanmobile" and explore the history of chocolate, how it's made, wrapped, and packaged at the Cadbury factory, and more. The park is home to the "World's Biggest Cadbury Shop," where guests will find all of their favorite Cadbury chocolates as well as novelty treats not sold at any other chocolate shop.

The Chocolat Alprose highlights the tradition of Swiss chocolate making and the history of chocolate in a guided tour of the factory. After the tour, visitors can treat their sweet tooth to anything and everything in the factory's chocolate shop.

At the Chocolaterie Duval factory, guests get a hands-on tutorial in making the chocolate company's famous caraques and pralines, from tempering and molding it to designing, packaging, and eventually eating it. When it's time to taste the chocolate, wine is offered for a wine and chocolate pairing.

Like a master cheesemonger, guests at the Emmentaler Schaukäserei factory can make their own hard or semi-soft cheese over an open fire. Once it's matured, the cheese can be delivered anywhere in the country.

As it recreates the invention of the world's first instant ramen, the Instant Ramen museum educates visitors on how the classic Asian noodle is made and lets them make their own. Kids can play in an interactive park that shows how the noodles are made and those wanting to make their own can do so at the Chicken Ramen Factory and the Cup Noodles Factory. Those interested in trying new ramen flavors can taste eight varieties at the Noodles Bazaar restaurant.

Nowhere else can you find as many classic, unusual, and novelty jelly bean flavors than at the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, Calif., where the factory air smells like whatever jelly bean flavors are being made that day... maybe cinnamon, buttered popcorn, or strawberry jam. 

At the La Maison du Gruyère cheese factory, the production of cheese is revealed through all the senses as guests are taken through a tour while sampling cheeses at different stages of maturity, from mild to salty.

A tour of the beloved Italian chocolate Perugina's Casa del Cioccolato begins in a museum which traces the roots of Perugina and explains how chocolate goes from a cocoa bean to a packaged, solid form. Casa del Cioccolato was named by CNN as one of the top five destinations for chocolate lovers.

One of the biggest and oldest cheese factories, Roquefort Société, offers an in-depth, underground tour of its cheese caves where cheese is made, wrapped, and matured using age-old methods. Visitors will discover the long history of Roquefort and its cheese as well as be able to taste the three types of Roquefort Société cheeses at the end of the tour.

The Shiroi Koibito Park is where Japan's favorite cream-filled wafers Shiroi Koibito cookies are made in the Shiroi Koibito factory. Here, guests can watch every stage of the cookie-sandwiching process as well as have the chance to make their own in the Cookiecraft Studio.