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Chocolate in the Modern Era
1765
Dorchester Mass: John Hannon and James Baker import beans into the US and produce cakes of chocolate for use in chocolate drinks. The
company’s employee Samuel German produces a sweeter version in 1852, which was the basis for a cake that was mistakenly named
“German chocolate cake”.
(The company is now owned by Kraft, having previously been bought by General Foods.)
1778
France: Doret invents a machine to automatically grind cacao beans.
1828
“Conrad Van Houten of the Netherlands developed a way of mechanically extracting most of the fat from the cacao liquor, resulting in cacao
butter, which could be used for anything from soap to suppositories, and the partly defatted ‘cocoa’. This cocoa furnished a quick drink far
easier than the traditional hot chocolate. Often the original cacao was further denatured by Houton’s other contribution, an alkali treatment that
made cocoa mix more smoothly while darkening the color and offsetting the natural acidity of poorly fermented or poor-quality beans.
… In addition, the cacao liquor and the cacao butter could be recombined by confectioners in any attractive proportions to make something
even more lucrative: eating chocolate. “… MP
In 1847, the Fry's chocolate factory, located in Union Street, Bristol, England, molded the first ever chocolate bar suitable for widespread
consumption. The firm began producing the Fry's Chocolate Cream bar in 1866. Over 220 products were introduced in the following decades,
including production of the first chocolate Easter egg in UK in 1873. JS Fry merged with Cadbury’s in 1919.
1852
Domingo Ghirardelli opens his chocolate shop in San Francisco, after running general stores and coffee houses, and a confectionary in Lima
Peru.
1868
Etienne Guittard founds Guittard Chocolate in San Francisco
John Cadbury starts a shop selling tea coffee and chocolate, and by the 1860’s is selling dozens of varieties of cacao drinks.
In 1870 he sells the first ever chocolate Easter egg, making chocolate an integral part of the spring celebration.
1875
Daniel Peter and Henri Nestlé perfect and market Milk Chocolate.
1878
The Cadburys, well known Abolitionsits and social engineers, establish Bournville, modeled on the York Chocolate Works community of
Liberal chocolate maker Seebohm Rowntree. Wanting to provide good working conditions for their employees, and ensure their safety and
happiness, they created a healthy community for them, complete with landscaped grounds, green spaces for relaxation ~ and heavy handed
Quaker moralism.
1879
“The next step forward was a smoother chocolate. The product made by the first European chocolatiers had a distinct graininess, which was
not a fault but an intrinsic quality of the food itself. This was eliminated by the Swiss Rodolphe Lindt. He added another stage to the process of
grinding the roasted cacao with sugar. The innovation, called “conching”, was to agitate the ground mass in a sloshing and kneading
apparatus … for hours on end. This partly rounded off the edges of the sugar crystals. When made into candy the resulting mixture had a way
of melting that soon became the norm for all chocolate.” MP
1886
Milton Hershey starts the Lancaster Caramel Company and is an overnight success, with huge orders exported to England, then Japan, China,
Australia, and Europe.
In 1894 he attends the Chicago International Exposition, buys German chocolate making machinery, and starts coating his Caramels with his
own chocolate.
In 1907 Hershey Park opens: a Utopian community where there would be “no poverty, no nuisances, no evil”
There was indoor plumbing, electricity, and steam heat, affordable with low rent or low interest loans from Hershey.
Happy, clean-living and loyal employees helped him build the company to annual sales of over 5 million dollars within 5 years, with shifts
keeping the factory running 24 hours a day.
Fortune magazine declares it immoral, as such generosity “saps a community’s self-reliance and injures pride.”
Hershey next buys 65,000 acres of sugar fields in Cuba, and builds Central Hershey Cuba, a town for the workers with running water and
electricity, health services and a baseball diamond.
Fun Fact: Hershey obtained US Military contracts to provide chocolate to troops:
The first emergency chocolate ration bar commissioned by the United States Army was the Ration D, commonly known as the D ration. Army
Quartermaster Colonel Paul Logan approached Hershey's Chocolate in April 1937, and met with William Murrie, the company president, and
Sam Hinkle, the chief chemist. Milton Hershey was extremely interested in the project when he was informed of the proposal, and the meeting
began the first experimental production of the D ration bar.
Colonel Logan had four requirements for the D ration Bar. The bar must:
1. Weigh 4 ounces
2. Be high in food energy value
3. Be able to withstand high temperatures
4. Taste "a little better than a boiled potato"
1900 – 1909 The Cadburys hear reports of slavery in Sao Tome, the source of their cacao. For ten years their own internal investigations fail
to corroborate the evidence of slavery, until 1909 when their plantations in Ghana started producing sufficient quantities to replace the Sao
Tome cacao. The family sues The Standard newspaper after they printing the following “…It’s not called Slavery; but ‘Contract Labor’ they call
it now… But in most of its essentials it is that monstrous trade in human flesh and blood against which the Quaker and radical ancestors of Mr.
Cadbury thundered in better days of England.”
1911
Belgian Callebaut Brewery begins making bars. In 1996 they will merge with Swiss company Cacao Barry to become the world’s largest
chocolate manufacturer.
1912
Belgian chocolatier Jean Neuhaus developed a process to pour couverture into molds creating a hard shell, enabling softer, more liquid
fillings like cremes, to be used.
1922
French pastry chef Monsieur Guironnet opens Valrhona near Lyon France
Artisan “Bean to Bar” chocolate manufacturers have created a niche in the market for about 20 years now.
Green & Black's was founded in 1991 by Craig Sams and his wife, Josephine Fairley, the magazine editor and widely-published journalist. The
name was derived not from any founders' surnames, but from a wordplay — "Green" standing for the environmental concerns of the founders,
and "Black" for the high cocoa solids chocolate they wished to provide. In 1994, the company began purchasing fairtrade cocoa from Maya
farmers in Belize for the Maya Gold chocolate bar, and was awarded the 1994 Worldaware Business Award for good business practice, as
well as the UK's first Fairtrade mark.
1994
El Rey launched its Carenero Superior bar, the first bar available in the US, labeled with the origin of the beans.
Founded in 1997 by Robert Steinberg and John Scharffenberger, SCHARFFEN BERGER began in Robert's kitchen with a few simple kitchen
appliances and nearly 30 varieties of cacao. The two tested multiple combinations before perfecting a unique blend that highlighted the true
flavor of cacao instead of masking it with sugar and other flavors. It was well-received by Bay Area foodies but it took a series of further
experiments before the company could consistently make wonderful chocolate. The first official batch of SCHARFFEN BERGER chocolate was
made in their South San Francisco factory using vintage European equipment.
2001 Dagoba Organic Chocolate was founded by Frederick Schilling in 2001
Theo:
Our founder, Joseph Whinney, pioneered the supply of organic cocoa beans into the United States in 1994. Joe always dreamt of building the
first organic chocolate factory in the US, as prior to Theo’s inaugural chocolate run in March of 2006, all organic chocolate was manufactured
in Europe and imported into the US market. As the first and only organic and Fair Trade chocolate factory in the country, all of our ingredients
are carefully screened to ensure they meet our standards for social and environmental responsibility.
Amano Artisan Chocolate was founded by Art Pollard and Clark Goble in 2006, in Orem, Utah. The company holds to a quality-over-quantity
vision. This affects not only their production and marketing, but also the relationship they share with suppliers. Amano, though not Fair-Trade
Certified, pays its suppliers nearly double the Fair-Trade standard (over triple the London Cocoa Terminal Market price).
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