It had to be used for mass production and no one knew if there’d be enough demand for the product. It was expensive and the brothers had little money. Could this be the way forward? Buying the press was a massive gamble. The press squeezed out much of the cocoa butter from the beans so it wasn’t necessary to add starches. But George Cadbury had heard about an innovative cocoa press being used by a Dutch manufacturer called Coenraad Johannes van Houten. They had to add starches to mask its taste and texture. Before Cocoa Essence, the cocoa Cadbury produced, like that of many other manufacturers, contained high levels of cocoa butter. The turning point for the Cadbury business was the introduction of a new processing technique, resulting in the 1866 launch of 'Cadbury Cocoa Essence', the UK's first unadulterated cocoa. He commented that if the business ever made a profit of a thousand pounds a year he would retire a happy man Read moreĪN INNOVATIVE PROCESSING TECHNIQUE IS INTRODUCED George looked after production and buying and Richard looked after sales and marketing, which wasn't in good shape. To keep the business alive, the brothers worked long hours and lived frugally. It was the equivalent of about £600,000 today, but it didn’t solve all their problems. Luckily they had a financial lifeline: each invested £4,000 in the business, money that had been left to them by their mother. Other cocoa manufacturers were going bust and they must have been worried that Cadbury Bros would soon be joining them. Although they’d both worked for the company for a number of years, taking control must still have been a daunting prospect for Richard and George. The brothers were just 25 and 21 when they took charge of the business. John's health rapidly declined and he finally retired in 1861, handing over complete control of the business to his sons Richard and George.
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