Cadbury

And the name behind the brand is...
John Cadbury

Eating chocolate was unknown when John Cadbury opened a grocery in Birmingham, England in 1824. He became the first tradesman to introduce the plate glass window to the streets of Birmingham. Window shoppers who gathered to gawk at 93 Bull Street could go inside and find a real Chinaman, ornately clad in Oriental garb, dispensing tea.

Chocolate was popular in an often-bitter drink and widely used in cooking and Cadbury sold a bit on the side. In 1831 John and his brother Benjamin began making some of their own chocolate in a small warehouse near the store.

The first eating chocolate was still nearly twenty years away and the Cadburys were among the first to mill “French eating chocolate” in England. Cadbury became the dominant confectioner in 1853 when the brothers received a Royal Warrant to provide an assortment of chocolates for Queen Victoria. The English monarchy counted on Cadbury for chocolate until the 1990s; in 1986 a Cadbury Milk Tray tin was created to celebrate the union of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.

In 1860 John Cadbury bought out his brother Benjamin but retired a year later. Under his sons Richard, then 26, and George, 22, the Cadburys improved the quality of its eating chocolate from cocoa butter. After dominating the chocolate-crazed English market Cadbury, then under the direction of John Cadbury’s great-grandson, entered the United States market in 1978, seven years after the creation of its famous Cadbury Creme Eggs.