Chocolate Wars: from Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry Pdf

FREE CHOCOLATE WARS: FROM CADBURY TO KRAFT: 200 YEARS OF SWEET SUCCESS AND BITTER RIVALRY PDF

In the s the Cadbury family was running a shoddy business peddling a poor product nobody wanted. Solid chocolate was yet to be invented; instead, it came as a dried block, flakes of which had to be chipped off in order to make hot cocoa drinks that tasted like potato flour. Most companies added brick dust for colouring. Cadbury's inventions, such as a chocolate infused with moss, weren't exactly hits, and it didn't help that their travelling salesman was a Scot with an accent nobody could decipher. Though it's written by a distant relative of the Cadbury clan, this isn't a corporate genealogy in the heroic mode. Chocolate Wars is popular history at its best, Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry ostensible subject just the stem from which branch digressions into vital topics such as slavery, war, international politics, unionism, the welfare state and the role of Snickers bars in all of this. A gripping chapter follows the realisation in that the peace-loving Cadburys had been unwittingly sourcing cocoa beans from the stocks of ruthless slave owners. It's a turning point, when the flow of global capital has become so complex that it becomes Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry to know where one's money is going. It's also a reminder that for all their billion-dollar philanthropy, the empires of your Bill Gates and Warren Buffetts of today are likely built in part on the ill-treatment of invisible workers somewhere on the planet. It's Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry things work. If all of this sounds rather dire, it's not. This is a charmingly written and lively book that develops the big picture through the accretion of tiny detail. What makes the 19th-century chocolate makers of Britain so unusual is that they were all Quakers, a group that shunned the hierarchies and decoration of organised religion in favour of a private relationship with the divine. They were resolute pacifists who rejected all notions of class, believing that all humans are equal and that it is our duty to work for the good of our fellows. The paradox is that companies that came to rule the confectionary world were founded by people whose faith was in solid opposition to today's business models. The amassing of personal wealth is anti-Quaker, and for much of the company's history the Cadburys, along with fellow chocolatiers from the Rowntree and Fry families, poured most of their profits into establishing charitable trusts and building model communities to break the cycle of poverty. It may seem quaint to contemplate companies led by old-fashioned religious principles, but Chocolate Wars gently makes apparent that corporatism is a religion too, and one with a much murkier set of morals. Throughout its history Cadbury had its rivals. The Frys and Rowntrees were oddly co-operative competitors, seeking to outsell each other but also lending a hand when times were tough. Across the Atlantic, wild and reckless Milton Hershey and cunning Forrest Mars both proved more potent threats, while Nestle is always a slightly sinister presence on the continent. When the death blow hits Cadbury, however, it's not from any of these competitors but from multinational hydra Kraft, which comes to represent everything the Cadburys of the s abhorred. One of the key tenets of the Quakers was to avoid debt, since an inability to honour your commitments could cause terrible misfortune for those you owe. A week after the hostile takeover, a factory had been closed and workers laid off. To the Cadburys of the s, for whom "wealth creation was for the benefit of the workers, the local community and society at large", the sweets they toiled for have most definitely soured. Chocolate Wars - From Cadbury to Kraft: years of sweet success and bitter rivalry. The Sydney Morning Herald. License this article.

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Chocolate Wars 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 unlea 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 Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry 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 contradictions: 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 thing: they want to make the best chocolate in the world. Get A Copy. Hardcoverpages. Published October 19th by PublicAffairs first published January 1st More Details Original Title. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Chocolate Warsplease sign up. Small chocolates are providing extraordinary chocolates to those willing to pay the price. Is there an opportunity for any of these to achieve the scale of reach Cadburies had? See 1 question about Chocolate Wars…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry. Sort order. Shelves: audiobookequinox-book-challenge. 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. Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry 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 choc 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. 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 Friendsas they were limited with what they could do under the strict regulations of their religious ordinances. 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. 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 Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry room and with shareholders. 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. 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. 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. View all 23 comments. 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 Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry 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. 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, Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry 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. 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 Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry formation of the big chocolate companies that are still around today, interesting to hear their I loved this book. 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. Jan 28, Alice O'herin rated it really liked it Shelves: business. 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! For the firs 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. Not much conflict there. 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. 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. 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 As a result, every time she would go on about Quakerism, I felt like she was going on a tangent Conclusion: Interesting read and well written. However, pretty terribly misrepresented in its marketing. May 03, Deepthi rated it really liked it Shelves: audiobooks. Chocolate lover or not, this is an enthralling read! 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 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.

The result is a smooth blend of "commodity biography" — a sub-genre made popular 15 years ago with the likes of Cod and Salt — and family saga. Whenever the technology starts to pall — and there is a limit to how long you can stay interested in "conching", the process whereby chocolate goes from gritty paste into creamy loveliness — there's always a human story to latch on to. Grandfathers work diligently but cling to the past, bad dads turn up with harebrained schemes, maverick younger brothers invent new tastes out Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry happy accidents. It is all rather delicious. Better still, it is good for you too. For what Cadbury wants us to take away from this selection box of dates, faces and cocoa nibs is the fact that, once upon a time, capitalism had a conscience. The big three British chocolate companies — CadburyFry and Rowntree — all emerged from the cradle of Quakerism, which developed in the lea of the English civil war. Excluded from the professions and public office, Quakers traditionally turned their hand to trade, where their self-imposed rules about the sinfulness of debt and the virtues of fair dealing ensured that they flourished. Quakers cornered the market in banking — Barclays and Lloyds were theirs — and shopkeeping. The Cadburys themselves started as Birmingham drapers with a keen eye for a market trend and an equally energetic mission to do right by their fellow man. Excited chatter about a new colonial commodity called cocoa suggested not so much the possibility of profit as the chance to wean the denizens of Hogarth's street scenes off the gin. Traded carefully, cocoa might save souls. With these salvationist qualities in mind, Cadbury initially developed cocoa as a health drink. While other less scrupulous — for which read non-Quaker — manufacturers cut their supplies with brick dust and iron filings, the Cadburys mixed theirs with lichen and gave it the bracing name of "Iceland Moss". Unsurprisingly perhaps, it failed to take off. Even more worryingly, no amount of offering the problem up to the Lord seemed to do the trick. What the Cadburys needed was a killer product. They got it in the end, thanks not so much to prayer as to poaching. Buying a patented press from a Dutch rival allowed them to produce both a more refined drinking cocoa and the beginnings of the modern chocolate bar. The trouble was that these new, improved products were more expensive than anything else on the market. There was nothing for it but to resort to advertising — something which Quakers traditionally regarded as so much "puffery". Setting Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry their scruples, the Cadburys opted for a poster showing an over-ripe little girl in a sailor suit quaffing "absolutely pure" cocoa. Very soon the firm was back in profit. This, though, is not a story of good intentions gone soft. The moment the Cadburys could afford to, they set about giving back. By they had built Bournville, their model village. Four miles outside the city centre, it was a paradise of arts and crafts cottages, with optional cricket and free dentistry. Even more remarkably, the firm seems to have achieved this without too much heavy-handed paternalism. Certainly the young men and women in the photographs look as if they know they've got a better deal than their cousins left behind in the slums of Birmingham. All of which makes the current state of affairs doubly ironic. The author loses no opportunity to remind us Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry the idea that big business is synonymous with a culture of individualistic greed would have seemed extraordinary to her ancestors. As far as the Cadburys and the other 4, or so Quaker families who ran much of Britain in the 19th century were concerned, money was only worth something if it was put to the common good. The founding fathers of these immensely successful firms skimped on food, never went by cab and regarded a long tramp in the countryside as all the holiday anyone could need. The second sadness concerns Cadbury more specifically. Last year the company was sold, with much bad feeling, to Kraft, and now comes the news that some of its offices will be moved to Switzerland. That Cadbury should now shift to the homeland of its former rivals is one of those ironies that global capitalism springs on us every now and then. This, surely, would make the firm's founders hang their heads in shame. Kathryn Hughes discovers a delicious side to capitalism. Kathryn Hughes.