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The First Entirely British Chocolate Bar
— 2 mins read
The last bar like it was given to the future Queen Elizabeth when she was six
A master's student at the University of Reading has made the first chocolate bar produced entirely from British ingredients since 1932. Only six bars exist.
Maha Khan, who is studying food security, used cocoa pods grown in climate-controlled greenhouses at the university's International Cocoa Quarantine Centre. She harvested the pods, dried the beans in the sun, and crushed them into powder. She then mixed the powder with British-grown sugar and milk to make the finished bars, the university announced.
'It has been amazing to follow the entire chocolate-making process, from pod to bean to bar, without leaving Reading', Ms Khan said.
The last one went to a princess
The only previous 100% British chocolate bar was made by Rowntree's in 1932, The Guardian reported. That bar came from a one-off greenhouse experiment in York. It was given to the future Queen Elizabeth, then aged six.
Rowntree's has been part of Nestlé since 1988. The 1932 bar is now a historical artefact.
The greenhouse that handles 97% of the world's cocoa plants
The quarantine centre, based at Arborfield in Berkshire, holds a living collection of more than 300 cocoa varieties. It handles 97% of the world's movement of cocoa plants, checking them for pests and diseases before they travel between growing regions.
Pods from the collection are normally removed and thrown away unused. This time they became the beans for Ms Khan's bar.
It has been amazing to follow the entire chocolate-making process, from pod to bean to bar, without leaving Reading.
The University of Reading is a public university funded mainly by government research grants and tuition fees. The quarantine centre is paid for through university budgets, research council grants, and partnerships with industry and cocoa-producing countries.
Why Britain will not be growing its own chocolate
The UK chocolate market is worth £10.4bn, and every bar of it depends on imported cocoa. Cocoa needs stable tropical conditions, typically 20C to 30C with high humidity and regular rainfall. Britain cannot replicate that outdoors at any scale.
This project is a research and education exercise, not the start of home-grown British chocolate. No commercial production has been announced.
Supply problems in West Africa, which have pushed global cocoa prices up sharply in recent seasons, are also driven by ageing trees, diseases such as swollen shoot virus, and the poor economics facing smallholder farmers.
Prof Carol Wagstaff, director of AgriFood Futures at the University of Reading, said: 'The UK chocolate industry rests on a supply chain that starts thousands of miles away in the tropics of Africa, South America and Asia.'
She said a resilient global market matters to the smallholder farmers who underpin the industry, as well as to chocolate makers and chocolate lovers in the UK.
