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As someone who grew up in Birmingham, I’ve always had a soft spot for Cadburys. Lots of the women who lived along our road worked on the production line in the Bourneville factory, or had at some point. I remember disbelieving the stories of how they were all now sick of the taste of it, having been allowed to eat as much as they like whilst at work.

I remember gleefully receiving bags of mis-shapes from those same women at Christmas and visiting the factory on school trips. I felt like I had a personal connection with the company, as if some local pride accorded some special affinity. This is of course the effect of great branding. No one has done this better than Cadburys over the years, and the reason I know this is because everyone seems to have the same personal connection to the global corporation as I do. So, how have they managed to do this? Being a successful global export whilst simultaneously being a local (or national) delicacy? It all started with one man. John Cadbury opened his first shop in Birmingham in 1824. He sold tea, coffee and cocoa as healthy (and delicious) alternatives to alcohol; a substance he believed kept the masses in poverty. John was a practicing Quaker and had a strong sense of social injustice, spending much of his life campaigning for worker’s rights and against child exploitation.

At the time cocoa was an expensive product, reserved for the upper classes, in order to tempt the masses away from alcohol he knew his products needed to be affordable and this meant his chocolate needed to be mass produced.

In 1831, John expanded to a warehouse in the city and starts commercially producing a range of drinking chocolates and cocoas. By 1842, John was selling 16 varieties of drinking chocolate and 11 different cocoas. Cadbury’s even became the official cocoa and chocolate makers for Queen Victoria with the Queen apparently fond enough of the drink to allow her image to be used in Cadbury's advertising. John and his brother were given their first royal warrant in 1854 and still hold a warrant to this day. John's sons Richard and George joined the business, bringing new vision for the company but both with the same strong values of their father. Despite their successes and expansion of the company the Cadbury business was near financial ruin. It was a difficult time for the company, Richard once said, “if Cadbury’s ever makes £1000 a year, I will retire a happy man”. The brothers decided they needed to look to the future and took a gamble on the innovative new ‘cocoa press’ in 1866. It fundamentally changed their product and set them apart from the competition. They created ‘Cocoa Essence’ one of many unique products they would bring to market, and advertised it as ‘Absolutely Pure. Therefore Best.’

By 1879, the brothers needed to expand again and so moved to a small village four miles south of Birmingham. At the time factories were oppressive places, dark and often dangerous. The Cadburys wanted to build something better. On the 14-acre site they found they started to build Bourneville. There was lots of room to expand, which was lucky, because George’s plans for the future were ambitious. He wanted to build a place full of green spaces, where industrial workers could thrive away

Factory in a garden - Birmingham Mail Archive from the pollution of the city. George famously said 'no man ought to be condemned to live in a place where a rose cannot grow’, a phrase that would later give itself to the names of their famous chocolate selection. Bourneville was completely unique. The factory was comfortable to work in and had sports grounds that the workers could exercise in. They built a worker’s village with each house having a garden big enough to grow vegetables. Above all there were good wages, medical treatment for those who needed it and even a pension plan. In 1905 the Cadbury’s cemented their place in history, they released the Dairy Milk bar. The chocolate bar had been around for over 50 years, and the Cadbury brothers had already developed their own in 1897. But in 1875 a Swiss chocolatier named Daniel Peter had added condensed milk to the list of ingredients, creating a smooth sweet bar that took Europe, and Britain by storm. The Cadbury brothers new they needed to create something that could compete so they attempted to create a bar that contained more milk than any other bar. They succeeded in creating the bar, but they were looking for a name for their new creation when a Dairy Milk Bar - PA:Press Association customer's daughter suggested ‘Dairy Milk’. The brothers had their hallmark product that would go on to become Britain's bestselling chocolate bar for generations to come. Cadbury continued to deliver innovations that would be taken to the hearts of the British public. Their ongoing invention and creativity sparked the young mind of another British institution. As a school boy Roald Dahl was lucky enough to be amongst a group of children at his school that tasted and tested new chocolates from the Cadbury factory. It certainly had an impact on him. When writing about his inspiration for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory he recalled: “It was then I realised that inside this great Cadburys chocolate factory there must be an inventing room, a secret place where fully-grown men and women in white overalls spent all their time playing around with sticky boiling messes, sugar and chocs, and mixing them up and trying to invent something new and fantastic.” This experience came in handy years later when he sat down to write his most famous novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Cadbury truly created something for everyone, true to the vision of their founder all those years ago and we’re immeasurably better for it. They stood out amongst their contemporaries for pioneering a way of improving working conditions whilst simultaneously enjoying resounding business success in a way that would stand out even in today’s market. As we can now enjoy a bar of this once local chocolate in any corner of the globe, we can all feel like shareholders in that success. DID YOU KNOW?

Cadburys supply a bar of royal chocolate to Buckingham Palace for the Queen every Christmas, made using a secret recipe and technique.

Richard Cadbury created the heart shaped chocolate box in 1861 which is now seen around the world on Valentine’s Day.

Cadbury pioneered the custom of closing the factory on bank holidays and giving their workers a day off.

LibraryRECOMMENDATIONS b k

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - by Roald Dahl

Cadbury's Purple Reign: The Story Behind Chocolate's Best-Loved Brand - by John Bradley

Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers - by Deborah Cadbury WORDS WORTH PUZZLERS WORDSWORTH’S PUZZLERS

WORD WHEEL: Try to create as many words as possible with E I the letters in the word wheel. You can only use each letter once and every word must T L include the letter in the centre of the wheel. T I Y H W Only Joking: Q: What do you call a clumsy but quiet chocolate bar? A: A careless Wispa.

COFFEE ANAGRAM: CONUNDRUM: ‘Batchelors Coat’ If you could only have one type of Clue: Made from squares of chocolate, what would it be and why? chocolate... If that’s too easy; if you had to get rid of one chocolate bar forever which would it be? And why?

RIDDLE: What has a head, a tail, is brown, and has no legs? Use number 1-9 to complete each box and each line. Never repeat a number within SUDOKU the same box or line. EASY DIFFICULT WORD SEARCH

Cadbury Frys WORD Bourneville Quaker Dairy Milk Chocolate LIST Cocoa Factory Birmingham Wonka

THE WORDSWORTH

LEARNING ARTICULATION

Your mind is a dictionary, create A warm-up for the lips, the a new entry and use it this teeth and the tip of the tongue. week. A cheeky chimp chucked ‘Ombrifuge’ cheap chocolate chips in the [OM-bruh-fyoozh] cheap chocolate chip shop. noun

Definition: Something that provides protection from the rain, especially an umbrella. Usage: “When you are caught IMAGINATION in a shower and spot a convenient ombrifuge ... should you run to it or walk?” A word without meaning, create something new by adding your own definition: MEMORY Yimello Learn this short poem and challenge yourself to recite it from memory.

Chocolate is sweet and so good to eat, I like it whenever I need a good treat. In brownies and cookies and chocolate cake, It adds extra sweetness to everything you bake.

QUESTIONS QUIZ TIME!

Q1. Which famous children’s author tested Cadbury’s chocolate as school boy?

Q2. Where did John Cadbury open his first shop in 1824?

Q3. What famous Valentines product did Richard Cadbury think up in 1861?

Q4. Who thought up the name for Cadbury’s iconic ‘Dairy Milk’ bar?

Q5. Where did the Cadbury brothers build their visionary factory for the future?

Q6. What did Cadbury’s do for their workers on bank holidays?

Q 7. How much did Richard Cadbury hope that Cadbury’s would eventually make in a year?

Q8. In what year did Cadbury’s launch their ‘Dairy Milk’ bar?

Q9. Who receives a specially made bar of Cadbury’s chocolate once a year?

Q10. In what year did Queen Victoria award Cadbury’s a royal warrant? SOLUTIONS

SUDOKU: WORDSEARCH: EASY

DIFFICULT

RIDDLE ANAGRAM SOLVED: SOLVED: A penny! Chocolate Bars

ANSWERS A5. Bourneville QUIZ A1. Roald Dahl A6. Gave them a day off TIME! A2. Birmingham A7. £1000 A3. The heart shaped A8. 1905 chocolate box A9. The Queen A4. A customer’s daughter A10. 1854 Mindful Moments

The Chocolate Meditation

Start by taking a square of chocolate and holding it in the palm of your hand or between your finger and thumb. Really focus on it; gaze at the piece of chocolate with care and full attention—imagine that you’ve just dropped in from Mars and have never seen anything like this before in your life.

Hold the piece of chocolate beneath your nose. With each inhalation, take in any smell, aroma, or fragrance that may arise. As you do this, notice anything interesting that may be happening in your mouth or stomach.

Now slowly bring the piece of chocolate up to your lips, noticing how your hand and arm know exactly how and where to position it. Gently place the piece of chocolate in your mouth; without chewing, noticing how it gets into your mouth in the first place. Spend a few moments focusing on the sensations of having it in your mouth, exploring it with your tongue.

When you are ready, prepare to chew the piece of chocolate, notice how and where it needs to be for chewing. Then, very consciously, take one or two bites into it and notice what happens in the aftermath, experiencing any waves of taste that emanate from it as you continue chewing. Without swallowing yet, notice the bare sensations of taste and texture in your mouth and how these may change over time, moment by moment. Also pay attention to any changes in the object itself.

When you feel ready to swallow the piece of chocolate, see if you can first detect the intention to swallow as it comes up, so that even this is experienced consciously before you actually swallow the piece of chocolate.

Finally, see if you can feel what is left of the piece of chocolate moving down into your stomach, and sense how your body as a whole is feeling after you have completed this exercise. Simply Relax It’s just colouring in...