Book dossier

Chocolate wars

by Deborah Cadbury

In the early nineteenth century Richard Cadbury sent his son, John, to London to study a new and exotic commodity: cocoa. Within a generation, John's sons had created a chocolate company to rival the great English firms of Rowntree and Fry. All three firms were Quaker family enterprises, and their business aims were infused with religious idealism. As chocolate companies raced to compete around the globe, Quaker capitalism met a challenge that would eventually defeat it. At the turn of the millennium Cadbury, the sole survivor of England's chocolate dynasties, was the world's largest confectionery company. But before long the chocolate wars culminated in a multi-billion pound showdown pitting independence and Quaker tradition against the cut-throat tactics of a corporate leviathan.