Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers

by Deborah Cadbury

With a cast of characters that wouldn?t be out of place in a Victorian novel, Chocolate Wars tells the story of the great chocolatier dynasties, through the prism of the Cadburys. Chocolate was consumed unrefined and unprocessed as a rather bitter, fatty drink for the wealthy elite until the late 19th century, when the Swiss discovered a way to blend it with milk and unleashed a product that would conquer every market in the world. Thereafter, one of the great global business rivalries unfolded as each chocolate maker attempted to dominate its domestic market and innovate new recipes for chocolate that would set it apart from its rivals. The contest was full of dramatic The Cadburys were austere Quakers who found themselves making millions from an indulgent product; Kitty Hershey could hardly have been more flamboyant yet her husband was moved by the Cadburys tradition of philanthropy. Each was a product of their unique time and place yet they shared one

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Food, Business, Audiobook, Biography, Cooking

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Deborah Cadbury is an award-winning British author and BBC television producer specialising in fundamental issues of science and history, and their effects on modern society.
After graduating from Sussex University in Psychology and Linacre College, Oxford she joined the BBC as a documentary maker and has received numerous international awards, including an Emmy, for her work on the BBC's Horizon strand.

She is also the highly-acclaimed author of The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, The Feminisation of Nature, The Dinosaur Hunters, The Lost King of France and Space Race.

(Source: Wikipedia, HarperCollins)

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the coming of Easter in a few days, there is sure to be an abundance of chocolate around the house, at least for those who celebrate and have people with a sweet tooth. It got me to wondering about the world’s obsession with cocoa products and how it all came about. It would seem that no matter when someone goes, there are all forms of chocolate, placed in the most conspicuous of places. Deborah Cadbury—of the famed cocoa family—sets about not only to tell of the emergence of cocoa and chocolate, but how companies began to rival one another on both sides of the Atlantic, creating a war that massive food companies perpetuated with their gargantuan holdings. Interestingly enough, cocoa was a commodity that came to Europe mainly from the New World, something that raised many an eyebrow as to how it might be utilised. Even more interesting, many of the early companies dealing with this product, especially in the United Kingdom, were run entirely by Quakers (the Society of Friends), as they were limited with what they could do under the strict regulations of their religious ordinances. Cadbury’s family was one such group who got into the business and sought to begin their empire by marketing a ‘healthier and more wholesome drink than alcohol’. To hear of how various vendors across Europe sought to create cocoa beverages and what they put in them would turn the reader’s stomach, as it did many consumers (some of whom surely died from the non-alimentary additives). While the Cadburys almost went bankrupt, due somewhat to the supersaturation of cocoa producers and vendors—including Terry’s Chocolate and Frye’s Cocoa—they were able to find their niche and work it, moving into the 20th century with something that would help them standout. The move from chocolate beverages to hard bars may not have been the sole propriety of Cadbury, but they found ways of making it marketable and intriguing to the general public. Companies like Nestlé arrived from Switzerland to offer their own milk chocolate, just as Hershey was establishing itself in America, creating the early buzz of a battle for the consumer. Cadbury gives a historical narrative of each of these, including how the clashes in the marketplace began heating things up. It was not until the American behemoth Kraft arrived that things began getting very dicey for fair market competition. As Cadbury explains, the Krafts were not ones to sit idly by, wanting to devour their European competitors with multi-billion pound takeovers, as others sought to amalgamate to prevent hostile loss of their ownership in the board room and with shareholders. When the (cocoa) dust settled, the gloves came off and there was blood in the streets, leaving Kraft and Nestlé to lick their small wounds and declare themselves the true powerhouses in the world of chocolate. (And you thought Willy Wonka was cruel with how he treated the other children!) A wonderful and eye-opening biographical piece by one who has surely seen and heard much in stories passed down from generation to generation. Deborah Cadbury tells it and keeps things going throughout this wonderful piece. Recommended to those who enjoy biographies with a difference, as well as the reader who often wondered ‘how that product came about’.

This book was loosely recommended to me a while ago, though I kept it filed away until I felt I was ready to tackle the topic. My current reading challenge brought this book to light and made it an almost essential read. As I mentioned earlier, with the coming of Easter, when chocolate seems more plentiful than a trip through Roald Dahl’s amazing book about a factory full of sweets, I wanted to know a little more about where all these dazzling bars and confections came from, as well as how cocoa came to be the centre of a massive business war. Cadbury seeks to offer excellent backstories about how these various companies came into being, including their non-chocolate foibles, while also showing how chocolate making touched on some of the social issues of the day, not the least of which being ‘blood cocoa’, where slaves were cultivating the beans in the New World and it was being shipped back for processing. There are so many nuances buried into this wonderful book that I never stopped learning. History weaves its way into this book as empires rise and fall, while the consumer benefits greatly. That said, it is the shareholder and the greedy boards that benefited most throughout the empire building, tossing billions out there to control the market share and leave the little person to wait and see if their factory work is worth anything. The book is laid out in a series of well-documented chapters, seeking to follow chronology wherever possible. This paves the way to an interesting story that the reader can piece together as the war escalates and victims are subsumed. Sobering and insightful from a woman whose ancestors were inside the ring, Deborah Cadbury does a masterful job covering the ins and outs of the entire industry. A must-read for those with an interest in the topic.

Kudos, Madam Cadbury, for shedding some light on this most complex topic. I see chocolate everywhere I go, but never thought to peek behind the proverbial curtain to see what was going on and how we got to this point.

This book fulfils Topic #1: The Skirmish, of the Equinox #10 Reading Challenge.

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

[Josie · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Audiobook]

Interesting in places, but at times very dry. I liked hearing about the history of Cadbury's, but got annoyed at the author's repeated description of the Quaker brothers as "patronising" and "patriarchal". If my boss decided to build a village, including an orchard and a swimming pool, where I could buy my own house and own it within 12 years, and took me and my fellow employees on days out (trips to the country, the seaside, etc.), then you wouldn't find me turning my nose up and sneering at his patronising and patriarchal ways. I mean, I would rejoice if I was treated that way in this day and age! If I'd lived in a Victorian slum, sharing one toilet and one water pump between six families, I'd have been in paradise.

So yeah, it did rile me that the Cadbury brothers' genuinely good-hearted attempts to improve the lives of their workforce and wider community were written off as being a product of their era and religion. I think the world would be a much better place if every organisation behaved in the same way they did, and held the same principles: namely, that wealth gained from a successful company should be used to improve the community, not kept as personal profit for the benefit of a few.

[Gwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. (Even though I ate a ridiculous amount of chocolate while reading it.) I can understand the criticism other reviewers have left: there's a lot more focus on Quakerism and business ethics than you would expect from the title and blurb. But as a Quaker with an interest in conscious capitalism, it was pretty much perfect for me!

It was great on a number of levels. Fun to hear about the formation of the big chocolate companies that are still around today, interesting to hear their stop-and-start formation stories, really fascinating for me personally to hear about the interplay of Quakerism with very successful business.

Definitely recommended. This is another one I'm going to have to get copies of to give to people.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

This non-fiction covers the rise of the chocolate industry from the early nineteenth century through recent times. It focuses primarily on three British companies: Cadbury, Rowntree, and Fry, and their Quaker roots. Deborah Cadbury, a descendant of the Cadbury founders, documents how these families got started and the many challenges they faced before becoming a thriving business. It includes competition from the Swiss company Nestlé, and American corporations Hershey and Mars. It relates how the industry has changed over the years, its consolidation in recent times, and the controversial hostile takeover of Cadbury by Kraft in 2010.

It differs from many business-oriented books in that it covers the family dynamics of the people who founded the companies. The narrative alternates between these personal stories and a broader analysis of industrial capitalism. It includes the building of Bournville, a 19th century model village (on the outskirts of Birmingham) built by the Cadbury family for its employees. It portrays how their religious values shaped business decisions about advertising, worker housing, and corporate responsibility. The author contrasts the more protective British model with American capitalism's focus on profits and market dominance.

I particularly enjoyed the sections that cover the sourcing of cocoa, and how it spurred social reforms with respect to worker exploitation. These companies were also involved in improvements in product quality, leading to outlawing of toxic additives and requiring disclosure of any adulterations. The treatment of the Kraft takeover feels a bit rushed compared to earlier chapters, but it effectively shows how nineteenth-century family values became incompatible with twenty-first-century shareholder capitalism. It’s not for everyone. You really need an interest in business history, but I found it fascinating.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skip the scary books about zombies or psychopathic clowns; this is my idea of a perfect Halloween read. What better to get me into the true spirit of the season than a book about the growth of the chocolate industry. Cadbury dominates this book, but other prominent companies get attention. There was so much that I did not know. I particularly enjoyed the earlier chapters and the way that Quaker spirituality helped and hindered various business endeavors in the 18th and 19th century.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a non-fic that gives a story of British chocolate manufacture during 19th and 20th centuries, from their Quaker roots to acquisitions by mutinationals. I read it as a part of monthly reading for October-November 2021 at Non Fiction Book Club group.

The book can be split into three major parts: humble beginnings, great projects and the coming of global food industry.

The first part tells about Quakers and their views on religion and on behaving in mundane world, including the necessity of honest deals, compassionate (even if paternalistic) attitude to employees and poor and destitute. At its height, Quakers were 1/10 of religious population of England and their attitudes are a bit similar to religious Jews in Europe, supporting each other within a community. Others added harmful or just cheap materials to cocoa drink powder, even brick dust, red lead, and iron compounds to add color; animal fat or starches such as corn, tapioca, or potato flour to add bulk. The Cadburys stressed the purity of their product. One interesting story is the decision of using (even honest) advertisement of their product, for ads were seen as a form of vanity. Here the main breakthroughs to make chocolate, milk chocolate and cocoa drink to what we know currently.

The second part is about social project of chocolate makers before the idea of welfare state, including a construction of model town, or working to improve lives in slums, from anti-drinking (and cocoa as a replacement for jin) to fighting illiteracy. It is a great example of non-Marxist social utopia experiments.

Finally, there is a sketch (much less detailed than the story of the Cadburys) about raise of Nestle, Mars and Hershey, their global dominance and coming to buy British confectionaries.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book appealed to me on a personal level because a) I love chocolate and b) I'm very interested in the idea of social entrepreneurship (trendy as it is now) and ethical business. I learned a lot about the history of chocolate as it came to the Western world.

However, I was frustrated by the misrepresentation of what the entire book is about! The book is called: "Chocolate Wars: The 150-year Rivalry between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers."
1. "Wars" or "Rivalry" is a stretch. For the first half of the book, the different chocolate makers/sellers are in different parts of the world without very much contact with one another. (Not much conflict there.)
2. "The World's Greatest Chocolate Makers" is true only if you mean the Cadburys are the world's greatest chocolate makers. With the focus very much on the Cadbury family specifically, only cursory mention is made of the Swiss or American companies or larger conglomerates. Whereas with the Cadburys we learn about personalities, family vacations, illnesses, and habits, we only hear about other companies in very broad strokes.
3. "Chocolate Wars" should probably be called "The Cadbury Family History" (but nobody would pick that up to read). The author goes into great detail in the war exploits, personalities, marriage history, and children of the Cadburys, which aren't directly relevant to the chocolate business (except to show how much of a family-run business it was).
4. The subtitle should probably mention something about Quaker business. The author spends a lot of time describing the ethos, content, and deep belief of the founders. In fact she ends the book not reflecting on chocolate but reflecting on "the Quaker message...shut out from the boardrooms in the City of London." I actually very much admire (and to some degree share) those beliefs, but I felt that the book's cover and jacket completed omitted a central thesis of the book. As a result, every time she would go on about Quakerism, I felt like she was going on a tangent... whereas by the end I finally realized it was part of her main point.

Conclusion: Interesting read and well written. However, pretty terribly misrepresented in its marketing.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best ways I’ve found to explore the factors that influence the grand sweep of modern history is to examine the stories of individual companies, industries, and commodities. And among the books I’ve found that have helped the most are The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization by Vince Beiser, Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert, and Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism by Bartow J. Elmore. Now chocolate joins sand, cotton, and Coke as a key to explore the depths of business history: Deborah Cadbury‘s Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World’s Greatest Chocolate Makers. Herself a descendant of the illustrious Quaker family that built one of the world’s biggest chocolate manufacturers, Cadbury provides an intimate view of an extraordinary company that pioneered a radical new approach to business.

Shareholder value versus stakeholder capitalism

The modern corporation began taking shape late in the nineteenth century. But only in the past four decades or so has it evolved into the form we recognize today in the United States—a massive, often highly diversified enterprise driven by “shareholder value” and run by professional (often grossly overpaid) managers. Under the precepts of shareholder value, the directors and managers of an enterprise regard it as their overarching duty to deliver ever-rising stock prices to those who “own” the company. In practice today, this means they look to the quarterly profit statements demanded by Wall Street and the City of London as the true measure of their success.

Business wasn’t all about money in the 19th century

In the mid-nineteenth century, when Cadbury and other Quaker-owned chocolate companies were laying the foundation for their future wealth, business was still largely a personal affair. Companies were owned and run by the families of their founders, many were managed paternalistically, and they were closely tied to the communities where they were located.

The “chocolate Quakers” were outliers

But the Quakers who built the early chocolate industry were outliers in their unwavering commitment to quality and the welfare of their employees. They “believed that ‘your own soul lived or perished according to its use of the gift of life.’ For them, spiritual wealth rather than the accumulation of possessions was the ‘enlarging force’ that informed business decisions.” The approach they took to their businesses is what today we would call “stakeholder capitalism“—a commitment to make business decisions based on how they would affect all stakeholders, not just those who own the shares.

Yes, there were chocolate wars—twice

Chocolate Wars follows the trajectory of Cadbury and other chocolate manufacturers founded in Britain by Quakers in the nineteenth century. These pioneering companies have long since been absorbed into immense, multinational corporations that have shed the humane Quaker values on which they were grounded. A century and a half ago, Cadbury (founded 1824), Rowntree’s (founded 1862), and Fry’s (founded 1761) accounted for the lion’s share of chocolate sales in the United Kingdom. Here’s what happened to them:

** Fry was absorbed by Cadbury and later disappeared entirely.

** Today, Rowntree’s is part of Nestlé, the Swiss multinational that is the largest food company in the world.

** And Cadbury is wholly owned by Mondelez International—a business once called Kraft Foods—and is the world’s second largest confectionary company after US-based Mars, Incorporated.

The eponymous “chocolate wars” can refer to the usually decorous rivalry among the big three British companies in the nineteenth century. But more often it’s taken to mean the no-holds-barred struggle for dominance in the twentieth century primarily involving the Swiss (Nestlé), Americans (Mars and Hershey), and British (Cadbury and Rowntree).

Even if you’re unfamiliar with the company names, you’ve surely come across—and quite likely consumed—some of their leading brands: Cadbury’s Dairy Milk; Rowntree’s Kit Kat and Rolo; Hershey’s Hershey Bar and Hershey’s Kisses; Nestlé’s Nescafé and infant formula; and Mars’ M&Ms, Milky Way, and Snickers.

A cast of larger-than-life characters in Chocolate Wars

George and Richard Cadbury

George Cadbury (1839-1922) and Richard Cadbury (1835-99) were the younger sons of their company’s founder John Cadbury, who took over a failing business in 1861 and built it into a behemoth. Along the way, they constructed a model village-factory at Bournville, which remains the Cadbury headquarters to this day. They were both exceedingly generous philanthropists who believed the causes they supported were more deserving of their accumulated wealth than their children—and the children agreed.

Joseph Rowntree

Joseph Rowntree (1836-1925) was the Quaker industrialist and philanthropist from York who ran Rowntree’s, one of the Cadburys’ principal competitors. Rowntree was an active social reformer who founded several trusts to improve the quality of life of his employees.

Forrest Mars Sr.

Forrest Mars Sr. (1904-99) was the hard-driving force behind the Mars candy empire. After his erratic father forced him out of the business they’d built together, Mars built his own company and eventually absorbed the old firm. Mars’ values, and those of his family, are far removed from the ideals that motivated the Quakers. The family is widely reported to have been instrumental in the repeal of the estate tax in the United States—the antithesis of the attitudes that drove the Cadburys and Rowntrees.

Milton Hershey

Milton Hershey (1857-1945) pioneered the manufacture of caramel, then built a new company that was the first to mass-produce milk chocolate. He built the model town of Hershey, Pennsylvania and gifted his controlling interest in the Hershey Company to a trust. The philanthropy benefits the Hershey Industrial School (now the Milton Hershey School) he had founded there for underprivileged orphan boys. The trust remains the controlling shareholder of Hershey’s to this day. Hershey’s values were grounded in the Mennonite faith of his parents and of the community where he grew up, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

What these remarkable men have in common is the extraordinary persistence they brought to their work. Every one of them struggled for many years against often great odds to develop the products and build the businesses that would ensure their future.

Reourceful and inventive Swiss, Dutch and French entrepreneurs also enter into Chocolate Wars, notably Henri Nestlé, Daniel Peter, Rodolphe Lindt, Jean Tobler, Coenraad Van Houten, and Johan Rudolf Sprüngli. You may recognize most of their surnames, too, in some of the other products you’re likely to encounter if, like me, you’re a chocoholic.

Family ownership is (mostly) long gone in the chocolate industry

But the days of family ownership and management have long gone by the wayside in the chocolate industry, with the exception of Mars, Inc., which remains family-owned. “When Dominic [Cadbury] stepped down in 2000, for the first time in the firm’s 170-year history, there was no longer a member of the family on the board, and less than 1 percent of [the] shares were in family hands. Over the years, the shares held by the Cadbury benevolent trusts had also declined.”

This is solidly grounded business history

Deborah Cadbury has done a superb job relating this complex tale in such a readable and insightful way. Chocolate Wars is solid business history. In nearly 400 pages, I came across only one error. She notes, in explaining the discrimination still directed at Quakers in Victorian England, that university education was not open to them. Both Oxford and Cambridge then denied entry to Quakers, Nonconformists, and Jews, as she correctly notes. However, University College, London was founded in 1826 with the express purpose of admitting students regardless of their religion.

About the author

British author and documentary filmmaker Deborah Cadbury is the author of ten nonfiction books and the producer of more than a dozen documentary films and television series, for which she has won many international awards. In Chocolate Wars, she refers to “the chocolate branch of the family.” She is a descendant of the oldest son of John Cadbury, who founded the original company that much later grew into Britain’s largest confectionary business. She is not herself affiliated with the company.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised to discover that the chocolate dynasties were so woven into the Quaker values and principles. The philosophy of living to do good was very apparent in the telling of these stories and, in fact, contributed to the success of the many British chocolate businesses.
A colleague of mine saw that I was reading a book about chocolate makers written by an author with the name of Cadbury. He immediately said that there was no way that this account could be unbiassed. He was wrong, this accounting by the author encompasses many of the chocolate dynasties of the time and offers an historical review of each without bias.
This book is well-organized and captures the spirit of the chocolate makers' values, resilience, and faith.

[Carl Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

How much of history is the story of individuals (or families) and their efforts and struggles to change the world? How much of it is the sweeping nature movements and ideas, culture—their coming together, clashing, synthesizing?

This is the story of the Cadburys written by a Cadbury. It’s the story of the growth of the chocolate industry in Britain, America, and Europe. It’s told from the point of view, largely, of the kind of individual perseverance that is sometimes considered part of the American Dream and more broadly of the capitalist ethos.

Back in the day in jolly old England, Quakers, along other non-conformists, were banned from attending college, law, and a host of other professions. Common understanding is that many of the creative and bright types were attracted to business, where indeed they did very well. The first iron bridge was constructed by a Quaker (read _The Iron Bridge_ by David Morse). Not a bad time travel/historic fiction novel). They were big names in banking. And candy.

The Cadburys, along with Hersey in the United States looked to do well with their money and the establishment of a “model village” is a part of the story told with reverence.

‘Twas an okay book, not great. If you like history told through the eyes of an individual or a family you’ll like this. If you’ve any interest in candy, or the story of rich kids getting richer by combining their sweat with their parents it’s worth a quick read. It lost a number opportunities to make broad or interesting connections.

[Khairul Hezry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Love Cadbury's Dairy Milk and when this book came out 10 years ago, I jumped on it excitedly because other than chocolate I also love history.

I was disappointed. I put down the book quarter of the way through and have been picking it up and putting it down again unfinished because it was just too boring. I expected the cut and thrusts of the rivalry between Cadbury and Kraft (as the title suggested) but all I got was mostly the life and times of the Cadbury family. Maybe the business shenanigans appear later in the book but I'm not gonna bother to find out. I've been giving this book a chance for over 10 years and it has failed to hold my interest everytime.

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm. Not exactly a classic.

[Priya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dairy milk,Snickers,Kit Kat,M&M - so many forms in which chocolates bring a smile to faces around the world. White, dark, bitter, milky, plain, filled with nuts and fruit - this is one treat most of us cannot resist. This story of how the chocolate companies as we know them today came into being is equally fascinating to read.

From the time the Cadbury family entered the cocoa business in London in the early nineteenth century, offering a chocolate drink as a nutritious alternative to alcohol to the time they were not so willingly acquired by American company Kraft foods in the twenty first century and everything that happened in between is chronicled in this story.

An important parallel thread to the business story is that of the way the religious beliefs of the earliest chocolate makers affected their decision. They were Quakers, whose guiding philosophy was that money should be used to do good and life should be lived simply without ostentation. And even while following these tenets, these men were responsible for creating the richest, most indulgent and luxurious delights using chocolate.

What's remarkable is the determination to succeed of these pioneers in the chocolate business and their untiring efforts to improve on their product whether it was making the cocoa smoother or figuring out a way to combine it with sugar and milk or setting into bars or coming up with more fancy variations, all the while being mindful of ensuring better living conditions for their employees and using their profits to improve the community around them.

The origins of Nestle, Hershey, Lindt, Marrs and many other small and big players and the dynamics between them over the years and within a fast changing environment is also told. As is the way many of them were brought to their knees and forced to give over their factories for munitions manufacture during the two world wars that had them already reeling due to shortages.

Mouth watering descriptions of the chocolate preparations that were tried out form a large part of the narrative and I wished I had them all in front of me to enjoy as I read! My favourite was the various stories about the provenance of many chocolates and their names that have been told over the years and have been included here.

I never thought a book about a business would be so delicious but it is!

[Courts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't expect this book to be as interesting as it was. I found it particularly fascinating how Quaker values were so deeply involved in the creation and success of so many confectionery firms.

[Deepthi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chocolate lover or not, this is an enthralling read!

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Business was not an end in itself; it was a means to an end.’

In writing this book, Deborah Cadbury set out to understand ‘the journey that took my deeply religious Quaker forebears from peddling tins of cocoa from a pony and trap around Birmingham to this mighty company that reached round the globe.’ It’s an interesting story, peopled with some fascinating characters, and spans almost 200 years from the beginnings of the business in 1824 to the takeover of the Cadbury chocolate business by Kraft in 2009.

In addition to members of the Cadbury family, the people we meet in the book include Henri Nestlé, who experimented with baby formula before becoming an internationally known chocolate magnate, and Daniel Peter (whose baby daughter Rose benefitted from Nestlé’s baby formula) who successfully making a milk chocolate bar after experimenting with milk and chocolate for many years. We also meet Rodolphe Lindt, Domingo Ghiradelli, Milton Hershey and C.J van Houten (inventor of the cocoa press).

In the middle of the 19th century, the cocoa bean was almost invariably consumed as a drink. And not a particularly appealing drink: it was gritty and visibly oily. The first chocolate bar did not appear in Britain until 1847 (made by the Fry brothers) but it wasn’t particularly appealing either.

The Cadbury brothers, George and Richard, were the third generation of Cadbury tradesman in Birmingham. Their grandfather Richard Tapper Cadbury had sent his son John to London to learn about the cocoa bean. A generation later, George and Richard had created a chocolate company. The Cadbury family were Quakers, as were the other British chocolate families of Rowntree and Fry, and their focus on worker welfare saw a number of innovative workplace reforms. Under George Cadbury’s direction, workers were provided with housing, education and training. There were also medical facilities and pension schemes for employees. In 1878, the Bournbrook estate on the outskirts of Birmingham was acquired by the brothers. The new factory, at what was renamed Bournville, was completed in 1879. There was room for landscaped parks, including rose gardens, and for organised recreation, including cricket.

Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate became a household name after its invention in 1905, and mass production began in earnest after World War I. A merger with J S Fry and Sons in 1919 and the development of products such as Cadbury’s Milk Tray and then Roses placed Cadbury’s at the forefront of world chocolate manufacture.

It’s all here in this book: a history of the Cadbury enterprise and of chocolate manufacture during the 19th and 20th centuries. The history involves exploration and innovation and, occasionally, espionage. The hostile takeover by Kraft saw the end of an era, of a Quaker company that had flourished on the principle of altruism and had taken over 180 years to build.

The book is interesting as well because of the information it includes about the role that Quakers played in English business and banking during the 18th and 19th centuries. By the early 19th century, some 4,000 Quakers were running English banks and companies, this was because their rules forbade them from entering Parliament, the Armed Forces and some professions (such as the law). Companies such as Bryant & May (matches), Clark (shoes), Huntley & Palmer (biscuits) and Wedgwood (chinaware) were all significant. In accordance with their own strict standards, the Quakers believed that wealth creation should fund social projects, that quality was paramount and that reckless debt was shameful.

I picked up this book on the basis of another review, and I’m glad that I did. Cadbury’s chocolate has been part of my life for over 50 years, but I knew little of the history of the company or of the chocolate making process. This book brings both to life, as well as providing interesting information about the role of Quaker-run companies during the Industrial Revolution and beyond.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the history of chocolate, in aspects of the manufacturing industry during the 19th and 20th centuries and in the growth of advertising. It’s sad, too, to see how the appetite for profit has starved notions of social welfare.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose to read this book when I noted the author was from the famous British Cadbury Chocolate family. I remember all the fuss in the news in 2009 when the American Kraft foods mounted a hostile takeover of the British Cadbury Chocolate Company. The British government was powerless to stop the international business deal. The British have no laws protecting their own companies for hostile takeovers. Within weeks a company that had taken 186 years to build and which had flourished on the Quaker principles of altruism had been abandoned to the global corporate goals of short term profits.

In the early 19th century 4000 Quakers families were running banks and companies –driven into the business world by the rules forbidding them from serving in Parliament, the armed forces and professions such as law or into higher education. Wedgwood’s china ware, Clark’s Shoes, Bryant & May’s matches, Huntley and Palmers biscuit’s all helped to shape the courses of the industrial revolution. Quaker Banks flourish as business and people could trust them to be honest and fair. The Quaker’s governed by their own strict standards such as the Quaker belief that wealth creation should fund social projects, that reckless debt was shameful and the quality of the product was paramount. I was particularly interested in the discussion of how the care of the poor shifted from the religious group, such as the Quakers and others in the 19th century, to the government after World War One (20th century).

In 1861 Birmingham, England Richard and George Cadbury inherited their fathers chocolate drink business. It was unprofitable. The brothers invested in new equipment from their Dutch competitors Van Houten and set about to design new products. The rest is history.
Deborah Cadbury tells of the intense competition between chocolate produces in Switzerland, mainly Nestle and the American Milton Hershey Company. In the 1880’s Cadbury spread to Australian and the West Indies, the Middle East and South East Asia. The Cadbury’s followed their Quaker rules with affordable housing for their employees, landscaped parks and philanthropic projects. Hershey (from a Mennonite family) in Pennsylvania and Roundtree in York followed suit. In 1919 a titanic struggle between British and Swiss producers began. In 1910 Cadbury was Britain’s largest manufacture of cocoa and chocolate.

The author tells of the accusation by a newspaper that Cadbury’s profited from the slave trade in Africa. This was adherent to their Quaker beliefs and they had fought against slavery. The Cadbury’s sued for libel and they won the case.

Deborah Cadbury is a perfectly diligent chronicler of the story of chocolate in the 19th century. She spends more time on the history than on the product creations. She does discuss the Cadbury takeover of JS Fry and Co and Schweppes. The author gives a blow by blow account of Kraft’s hostile takeover of Cadbury. The author does stress the lost to the business world of a large family business operating under the Quaker values.

Cadbury’s fate is a sad one but all too common in our current era of global conglomerates. The author was the narrator of the story. If you are interested in social and business history or in chocolate this is a great book to read.

[Joyce Yee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you ever wonder how your chocolate bar got to the store you bought it from? This book by Deborah Cadbury, a descendant of the Cadbury chocolatiers of England, describes the modern history of how chocolate was developed by companies such as Cadbury, Rowntree and Nestle's. What I found was that some of the major chocolatiers in England such as the Cadbury company, was founded and run by Quakers. Their principles included an emphasis on treating their employees in humane ways, including building housing for them and their families, making sure the factory was located in an area in which fresh air and water were readily available - they felt that people shouldn't work in smelly unsafe urban factories.

Deborah shares the absolutely fascinating stories of the technical issues involved in creating drinking chocolate, then candy bars from the cocoa bean plant. Interwoven with these stories are the histories and perspectives of the major chocolate manufacturers in England, Holland and the U.S. Reading about the strong social values of the Quaker chocolatiers such as the Cadbury brothers and the Rowntree company founders made me long for more corporations who value the well being of their employees, and who have a social conscience. She on the other hand is also candid about the Cadbury brothers' use of cocoa beans harvested by slaves in Africa, and the resulting public reaction against them.

After reading this book, I don't regard my chocolate bar and drinking chocolate the same way anymore - how much underlies the development of these products, and how they have evolved over time.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jesse highly recommended this book, and I had thought it might be a good read-aloud, but by half way through the introduction we found ourselves ranting and fuming about the evils of late twentieth century capitalism and decided that this might not be the pleasant light read that we hoped it would be. It is an interesting story — a bit tangled with all the various players: Cadbury, Fry, Rowntree, Nestle, Hershey, and Mars as well as other minor players — but they writing isn't all that engaging. The Quaker connection is interesting given our family link to Quaker culture. The Quaker version of capitalism as embodied by the big English chocolate manufacturers of the late 1800's and early 1900's is much more human, socially responsible and forward looking that the current model, and, of course, by the end of the book stock market greed mongers and short-termers have cannibalised all the ethically oriented family firms like the Cadbury's. Interesting, but kind of depressing in the end.

The book would probably have been much more engaging if I had been allowed to sample some of the products of the companies profiled, but alas...

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most interesting books I've read in awhile. Fascinating history of the development of chocolate, the chocolate industry, the companies involved; Cadbury, Rowntree, Nestle, Hershey, etc. More than just a story about chocolate, even though, the story could not have been written without the ingenuity and imagination of people like George Cadbury and Joseph Rowntree, the story is also a history of the times; how the Quaker ideals were brought to bear in the development of the English chocolate industry, challenges from other companies, dealing with issues such as World Wars and how that might impact on Quaker pacifism, child slavery, the pressures of the current financial system on what were family businesses with 180 years of history. A very fascinating story and well - worth reading. Deborah Cadbury has researched this story exceedingly well and presented the history in a well-written, interesting manner.

[terpkristin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried, I really did. But I gave up.

This might very well be a good book. I have no idea. I got it on a sale at Audible and after listening to it for about 2 hours, realized I could not take the narrator (who also happens to be the author). Oddly, I seem to have had more issues with female narrators than male. Anyway, that was just a random aside.

Narrator aside, I couldn't get into this. Easily half (if not more) of what I actually listened to was history of or information about Quakers, and why they're so righteous (or so I've been told). I also learned that Kraft is evil (probably so). The rest of what I listened to was a confusing litany of what I think was the start of the Cadbury chocolate company. But the story jumped back and forth in time, and many of the people in the Cadbury family share first names.

So I gave up. I wouldn't recommend it, but who knows, maybe one day I'll give it a go in Kindle or dead tree format and will have better luck.

[Katy Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book.
I chose it based on the subject matter (being a chocolate lover!), and not only did I find the history of the Cadbury family compelling and uplifting, but the social history of the other chocolate dynasties was fascinating too.
I learnt more about the history of chocolate from this book than a trip to Cadbury World (unfortunately!)
Who knew you could read a book where you'd keep feeling Nestlé was the bad guy...

The author was obviously biased and did seen to make her family the heroes but they were evidently quite amazing and principled people. I'm very glad to know more about their contributions to Britain and the wider world.

A very interesting and readable biography and history.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A life long chocolate fan and as an Australian who grew up with the number 1 chocolate being Cadbury I really enjoyed this book. It was fascinating to see where it all started and how it got to where it is today.

I agree with the author that there really is something missing from big companies today. It's too much focused on the dollar.

I know the main company the book focused on was Cadbury but I would have liked to have had more about Mars and the European companies like Lindt. I know there were sections on each but I'd have liked more.

Overall though it was a great read on a once mighty company that has succumbed to the perils of globalisation.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a wonderful history of the great chocolate makers such as Cadbury, Rowntree, Nestle, Hershey's, etc. It is also a wonderful description of how capitalism and industry need not be amoral and insensitive to matters of ethics.

How faithful and religious Quakers made a profit is quite an insight in today's age of everyone out for themselves. Many of our Wall Street titans could benefit.

The author herself is a descendant of the Cadburys. Highly recommend as a good history of chocolate, industry, Quakers, and business!

[nathalia borghi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book, nicely written and with a fast pace. The only reason I gave it four stars it because, at times, that pace is interrupted and goes slowly as hell. Maybe because it wasn't much of my interest, but I would've summarised more the part about slavery and cut short some of the business details.
The religious part, however, some thought it was too long or detailed (based on some reviews here), but I think it's what adds so much emotion and humanity into the book and into food history.

Highly recommended.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was interested in what the history was behind the big names in chocolate so picked up this book. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It was very well written and arranged in a way that not only provided the reader with the major players, but took us through the history logically and clearly. I found the chocolate history fascinating and am impressed with the men who made these businesses.

The main focus of the story was Cadbury, which makes sense as Deborah Cadbury is a member of that family. She did an amazing job recounting the history of her family and how they got to where they are today. As she moved through the past 150 years, she added and included the other major players in the chocolate industry.

Things that stood out to me (in no particular order) was that chocolate originated as a drink; something that you would mix in. From the sound of it, it wasn't all that great at first. I would be so curious to visit a Cadbury factory and get to sample it. To see how far chocolate has come. The second thing of interest to me was that Cadbury (and Rowntree and Fry) were all Quakers. They brought their faith into their companies. They cared little about personal wealth and focused on how to make their workers lives better and how to help the poor. They created towns centered around their factories with homes, schools, churches (all kinds of churches, not just Quaker), recreation, etc. At the time, living in Bournville (Cadbury's town) was highly desirable.

I found it interesting that Nestle created infant milk (powdered milk) and sold his business with his name attached. Unless I missed something, that was his entire involvement in the 'business' yet his name is so synonymous with chocolate now. For his powdered milk was one of the main tools used to create a successful milk chocolate. Hershey failed over and over at making a successful business. His family was wealthy and kept bailing him out, until they finally said no. But he hit upon chocolate, became a success, and after seeing Bournville he also decided to create his own town in Pennsylvania. He married a woman named Kitty who sadly couldn't have children and became very sick. He focused on providing for orphan boys and left his factory to a trust.

Mars came across as a profit focused entrepreneur. Unlike Hershey and Cadbury, he cared about the bottom line, not about the entire 'package'. Which makes me sad as who doesn't love a snickers! But the corporate take-overs at the end was a bit surprising, and sad. Cadbury doesn't paint Irene Rosenfeld in a positive light. Rosenfeld came from Kraft to buy out Cadbury and ultimately succeeded. But other than an initial making of money, long term this does not seem like it will necessarily be successful. Almost immediately Kraft closed a Cadbury factory. And Kraft is in a ton of debt.

Anyway, interesting read. I would really love to buy a box of all the different types of chocolates and drinks referenced throughout the book (small, bite-sized chocolates, of course). I think tasting the different chocolates throughout history and comparing the different brands would be fun.
I admit I'm sad Cadbury didn't stay in the family. I understand why they did what they did.

[Merrikay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Deborah Cadbury of THE Cadbury family.  She writes about Cadbury, Hershey, Nestle, and  other companies and the development of chocolate as a food product.  It begins with people wondering what to do with this bean to make money with it.  It includes information about developing these products, finding the cocoa beans, growing the beans in new locales around the world, marketing to different cultures i.e. convincing people they need it and on and on and is fascinating.  For me the most interesting part however, was about the business models used.  I learned how a business can grow from that one individual businessman with decent morals, to an international corporation willing to use slave labor for a buck.  Is it grow or die or are their alternatives?  My favorite quotation:

"The problem with the way we have developed our system of shareholder capitalism is that the shareholder is being divorced from his role in ownership," explains Sir Dominic Cadbury, the last family chairman.

Cadbury and a few other chocolate makers were practicing Quakers and wanted to use their business in service of their faith.  Some of their guiding beliefs for business are:

Keep your word.
Do not go into debt or bankruptcy.
Watch over other Quaker businesses and advise their owners when they appear to be in trouble or making poor or unethical 
decisions, and take influence from them yourself.
As the Industrial Revolution built momentum, they were warned against paper credit and that warning was added to their written guidelines.
They had meetings monthly with other Quaker business leaders and discussed business principles, check  that their ethics and beliefs are  in line with their actions and if not, after repeated warnings were given, they would be disowned by the Society of Friends.  As wealth grew, additional guidelines were added warning Friends that accumulation of riches for oneself was not acceptable.  Annually they met with other Quaker business leaders from a larger geographic area requiring travel, to address these ideas also.  They thus developed written ethical guidelines and business guidelines and helped each other succeed financially also.  As wealth continued to build, guidelines were also written for children of rich Quakers to ensure they were not corrupted.  

Of course those are basically just decent principles for living, right? This book is the story of the attempt to fulfill that Quaker purpose.   Many succeeded as did the Cadburys initially, but when problems continued to arise with the growth of industrialization, the first break for the Cadburys with their ethics was they began advertising.  Other companies were having great success advertising already, and Cadbury joined in.  They believed they were selling an excellent product in their drinking chocolate that was both good for health, and an optional substitute for alcohol which was causing great problems.  In this way they justified their decision to advertise, but it was a definite break from their religious ethics.

Some other things these Quaker businessmen did was build housing for their employees and help them to buy them.  The housing community areas  included green space, gardens (with gardeners to teach them how to raise food), swimming pools, tennis courts and other amenities.  Cadbury also provided education and health care.  These sound admirable at first glance, but seem to some to be rather paternalistic.  How about you pay your employees a fair living wage so that they can afford to choose their own housing, education and medical care?  The Cadburys and others also did much philanthropical work but again, how about you pay people enough that they don't need your charity?  This idea is also addressed in the book with a quotation from a theologian from Dartmouth, William Jewitt Tucker, "I can conceive of no greater mistake, more disastrous in the end to religion, if not to society, than of trying to make charity do the work of justice."

There are just a multitude of ideas in this book that are so important, and really have not changed today.  As the Cadburys (and other families also) attempt to do good things, they keep getting stymied.  This might be a good place to discuss the existence of altruism - is there such a thing? At any rate, they are almost universally stymied in their efforts, whether altruistic or not.  For example, they learn that slavery is being used by their cocoa bean sources.  When they decide to  boycott those growers, or go to another supplier, the British government suggest that other buyers will just take their place, whereas if they wait and work with the British government they can put pressure on the Portuguese government to not  only end slavery but reform labor practices holistically.  Cadbury agrees to do this somewhat undercover, but word gets out and they are crucified in the press for not boycotting immediately.  Again, when Cadbury decides to buy a newspaper or two to disseminate information (read propaganda) supporting their beliefs, that is antiwar and pro labor, they are again accused of hypocrisy when it is made known that their newspaper has continued advertising for gambling, while they preach against it.  Cadbury believed the paper would go bankrupt without that advertising (based on previous experiences) and decided it would be better to have a paper with gambling info and antiwar sentiments, rather than just the one paper with gambling advertising and pro war sentiments.  

Cadbury also addresses the effects of two world wars on business.  When WWI began, Cadbury put a lot thought of thought into what would be the appropriate use for a Quaker's wealth under those circumstances.  One of the things that came out of that was ambulance support and workers.  I can appreciate conscientious objectors, but what does this ambulance support mean?  I support your war enough to risk my life taking care of you but not to kill someone else, only to make it easier for YOU to kill someone else?  Interesting interpretation.

The end of the story is basically, everyone gets taken over and becomes too large to be accountable.  What remains today of the philanthropy or good works of Cadbury and I believe Hershey also, are trusts that are separate from the business.

If you look at corporations today and wonder how the heck we got in this greedy mess, with CEOs who make 300 times what their workers do, this is a good example of how it all works.  4.5 stars - would have been 5 but it was sometimes hard to track the info and stories because of the breadth of info.  I haven't even begun to touch on the material covered in this book..

[Margaret Crampton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating well researched book detailing primarily the history of Cadbury chocolate production in Birmingham. How it evolved over a century as a family business built on Quaker principles, with a culture to match. The Cadbury family were hugely influential in building a model village to benefit their staff and the community in the countryside at Bourneville around the hugely successful chocolate factory.
Innovative in every way they pioneered cocoa and chocolate production from local to National to international to the situation today when we all enjoy our chocolate.
Initially they were competing and collaborating with similar Quaker family companies such as those of the Rountree’s in York and Fry’s in Bristol. As world markets opened up to them they spread internationally and Hersheys Nestles and Mars became competition as they expanded in the USA and worldwide They eventually became a public company the personal touch was lost and the the family business ultimately succumbed overnight to a hostile takeover by the American food company Kraft.
This is a fascinating read and is highly recommended both as a biography of a family, the history of cocoa and chocolate production and consumption; the influence of this public spirited family’s contribution to wealth sharing and alleviation of poverty and as a social history.

[Corban Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what an interesting read. Chocolate Wars tells the story of the great chocolatier dynasties from the viewpoint of the Cadbury family, one of the oldest contenders in this chocolate struggle. This book was insightful in some places, rather boring in others, and I definitely wouldn't describe any of it as a "Chocolate War" just because all of the companies in this book were usually in different times, were always in different parts of the world, and just weren't directly competing against each other for the majority of the time period described in this book. Also, the focus was very much on the Cadbury family specifically, which is fine if I were reading a Cadbury history book. Unfortunately I was looking for a more holistic view on the Chocolate world. In my opinion Chocolate Wars is a well written read, but slightly misrepresented in terms of content.

[Tony Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I began my business career as IBM's technical rep to Cadbury-Schweppes at Bourneville. This book bought back memories of the chocolate factory, albeit at that time (1982-4) that it was going through its last stages of transition as Cadbury moved further away from the paternalistic Quaker employer to the modern global enterprise that it became. This book, written by a descendant of the original founding fathers, traces the firm's history from the 19th century to the hostile take over by Kraft in 2009. It also covers much of the history of the Quaker movement in England, and the parallel developments of cocoa businesses in both the UK and around the world. Interesting and enjoyable read, although it is still the case that having spent several years walking to work past the production line that spewed out 350 million creme eggs a year, I cannot ever face eating one.