Sweet Reform for George Cadbury, Producing Delicious Chocolate Was Just the Start
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PROFILE/BY BENJAMIN MUSACHIO Sweet Reform For George Cadbury, producing delicious chocolate was just the start > IF YOU’RE A FAN OF CHOCOLATE, nonviolence, inner chances are good that you’ve probably reflection and simplicity. munched on a Cadbury chocolate Quakerism would become bar at some point in your life. Cadbury a guiding light for is the second largest confectionary George—one that would brand in the world (after Wrigley’s). inspire his work Consumers in more than 50 countries throughout his life. enjoy Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate George’s father, and other sweet temptations. The John Cadbury, first company’s 180-plus years of success started selling cocoa are largely linked to the discipline products at 93 Bull Street, and benevolence of one man: Birmingham, in 1824. George Cadbury. The timing was fortuitous. While clearly a successful The Cadbury’s shop businessman, Cadbury was committed opened as chocolate George Cadbury Caters News/ZUMA Press/Newscom to more than producing great chocolate. consumption was on the A pioneering social reformer, he rise in Britain. At this Then, in 1855, personal tragedy worked tirelessly to improve the point, the chocolate bar so popular struck. The death of John’s sickly wife, living and working conditions of his today had yet to be developed. Instead, Candia Cadbury, hit the family hard. employees, and the philanthropic most of the Cadbury’s cocoa business John Cadbury fell into depression. ventures he established continue consisted of “drinking chocolate”— Profits dived; the company suffered to enrich the lives of countless a concoction of melted cocoa butter annual losses. Eventually, the elder people today. far richer than today’s powdered Cadbury decided that it was time to George Cadbury was born in hot chocolate. turn the business over to his sons. 1839, in the English industrial John Cadbury’s humble grocery George and Richard Cadbury took city of Birmingham. His family was quickly expanded into ever-larger over in 1861, hoping to breathe new life devoted to the Society of factories. With the new facilities, into the chocolate business. The two Friends, a Quaker production increased 20-something brothers were committed denomination dramatically, and he enticed to working hard. “Their rescue of the espousing his customers with 16 ailing family business reads like a varieties of drinking textbook example of the Victorian chocolate, as well as virtues of hard work and economy,” coffee and teas galore. writes historian Walter Stranz, who notes that the brothers toiled 12 hours a day, six days a week. Before long, George Cadbury found success with the bold acquisition of a Dutch invention that pressed butter out of the cocoa, creating a pure and delicious cocoa essence. The brothers advertised their new product on Marianna Day Massey/ZUMA Press/Newscom London omnibuses, and the public 6 BOSS 4 fa ll/w i nte r 2017 couldn’t get enough. By 1870, the esprit de corps that would also be good CADBURY TODAY Cadbury Company could claim 200 for business. employees. The firm was outgrowing its By the 1890s, the city of Cadbury was acquired by Kraft cramped urban confines. Birmingham had started to intrude Foods in February 2010 and two The Cadbury brothers cast their onto the 24-house neighborhood years later, Kraft split into two eyes to the Birmingham suburbs, constructed by Cadbury when the companies. Its confectionary finding a suitable site at Bournville, company first moved to Bournville. business became Mondelez 4 miles south. George plunged into To escape the creep of dingy urban International, with Cadbury as designing a new factory. Within slums, George Cadbury envisaged a subsidiary. Today, Cadbury 10 years there, Cadbury’s workforce a 120-acre planned community. He chocolate production continues exploded from 230 to 1,200. wanted every Cadbury worker to dwell at factories across the United Efficiently producing milk in a suburban cottage, replete with Kingdom, including at Bournville, chocolate was a huge breakthrough. personal gardens, low rents and leafy which is also home to Mondelez’s The Cadbury brothers used canal lines green surroundings. Global Centre of Excellence for to directly link Bournville to the dairy Bournville Village was founded in Chocolate Research and farms of nearby Shropshire and 1895. Unlike other communities Development. Every new chocolate Gloucestershire. The result of this designed by industrial reformers, product created by Cadbury expeditious shipping: Cadbury’s famous Bournville Village was not a “company anywhere in the world starts its “Dairy Milk” chocolate bar, which hit town.” Laborers from other businesses life at the Birmingham plant. the market in 1905. (Sadly, Richard were free to move in as well. In fact, Cadbury did not live to see the debut of during George Cadbury’s lifetime, only Dairy Milk. He died unexpectedly in 40 percent of the village’s inhabitants 1899, at the age of 63.) were Cadbury employees. As the family business’ fortunes In tandem with the expansion To help promote his ideas about grew, so did George Cadbury’s of the chocolate business, George social reform, he purchased several commitment to philanthropy. Each Cadbury was committed to bettering newspapers. These provided a pulpit for summer, he hosted grand parties for the welfare of his employees and their him to lobby for improved working 25,000 deserving inner-city children of families. He believed that happy conditions for all workers and to share Birmingham on his wooded estate. And workers, living in pleasant and sanitary details of the social security program he he donated the building for the Royal surroundings, would contribute to an had established at Cadbury Ltd. Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham (which formed from the union of two The Cadbury factory in Bournville, Birmingham hospitals and opened in 1909), where he made the rounds on Sunday mornings, leaving each patient with a Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar. Throughout his later years, George Cadbury’s favored brand of philanthropy, in keeping with his Quaker faith that valued simplicity, was far from flashy. He savored quiet, direct contact with the people he served. And he passed down this philanthropic commitment to his two sons, who carried on the tradition as adults. George Cadbury died on Oct. 24, 1922, at the age of 83. Through the thriving business that he and his brother created, and the Village Trust they founded, the Cadbury legacy lives on. Ian Yates/UPPA/Photoshot/Newscom Ian www.dixonva lve.co m fa ll/w i nte r 2017 4 BOSS 7.