The History of Sweets by Paul Chrystal

Author:Paul Chrystal [Chrystal, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Fry’s of Bristol

We have seen how Fry’s was at the forefront of developments in chocolate production in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It started in 1728 with Walter Churchman’s shop and the granting of Letters Patent from George II. Seven monarchs subsequently appointed Fry’s to the Royal Household as cocoa and chocolate manufacturers. It accelerated in 1761 when Joseph Fry, a Quaker physician – entrepreneur, industrialist and businessman par excellence – with John Vaughan – bought Walter Churchman’s chocolate business which then became Fry, Vaughan & Co. The coffee and chocolate houses in nearby fashionable Bath soon became a lucrative cocoa market. At the same time, they acquired patent rights and recipes for the manufacture of drinking chocolate. The company moved in 1777 from Newgate Street to upmarket Union Street to tap the wealthy clientele strolling there; two years later, on Joseph’s death, Anna Fry took over and renamed the company Anna Fry & Son. That son was Joseph Storrs Fry who was in charge from 1795; it was he who industrialised and revolutionised chocolate manufacture when he introduced the Watt steam engine into the manufacturing process. On Anna’s death in 1803, a Dr Hunt joined the company thus leading to another rebadging as Fry & Hunt; on Hunt’s retirement Joseph Storr’s sons ( Joseph II, Francis and Richard) became partners and the company was renamed J. S. Fry & Sons – by then England’s largest chocolate producer. In 1835, Fry’s was using 40 per cent of the cocoa imported into Britain with sales of £12,000 per annum.

Up until 1853 it was French chocolate that enjoyed the best reputation in Britain and the belief was that anything British simply could not compete. But then Fry’s produced its Cream Stick – the first chocolate confectionery to be produced on an industrial scale. Hitherto chocolate had been a luxury beyond the budgets of most people, but this was a ‘value for money bar’. The popularity of French chocolate receded to the extent that Fry’s even received a brevet appointing the company as manufacturers of cocoa and chocolate to the Imperial House of Napoleon III.

So, having mechanised chocolate production with steam power, and pioneering eating chocolate in 1847, Fry’s can claim another first when in 1866 it started production of the direct descendant of Fry’s Cream Stick, Fry’s Chocolate Cream – a fondant cream-filled chocolate bar which was remoulded in 1875 to the shape it still has today. In 1902, Fry’s Milk Chocolate was launched – later rechristened Fry’s Five Boys. Orange Cream and Peppermint Cream followed with Fry’s Five Centre in 1934 (orange, raspberry, lime, strawberry and pineapple). Output of the cream bar exceeded half a million units per day at one point; the iconic foil wrapping and blue label came in 1925.

Chocolate Cream was the first of many ‘Specialties of the House’, to be followed by Crunchie; Punch (which came in four flavours: Full Cream, Milk Chocolate, Delicious Caramel and Milky Fudge – output was millions per month); Caramets

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