Looking for India’s favourite chocolate in Bournville

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Growing up, I believed ‘Cadbury’ was just another word for chocolate, and I wasn’t the only one. Milk chocolate was first imported into India by the British and it’s now a daily habit for one in five Indians, according to a 2019 report by Mintel.

Despite the proliferation of brands from across the world, Cadbury remains India’s favourite chocolate brand, and after almost 75 years in the country, the Mondelez-owned chocolatier is a candy colossus, with over 65% of the market share. During a recent trip to the UK, I decided to head to Bournville, the village barely 5 miles from Birmingham, the home of the much-loved chocolates, and where John Cadbury opened a grocer’s shop in Birmingham’s Bull Street in 1824 to sell cocoa and drinking chocolate, which he made using a mortar and pestle. John Cadbury was a Quaker who believed in total abstinence and in Quaker Leaders Who Transformed the World, David Kingrey writes that he turned chocolate into a drink as “an alternative to alcoholic beverages".

Its growing popularity led him to buy a warehouse in 1831 and start manufacturing. His sons, George and Richard, joined the business, and they moved to a larger factory in 1847. In Life of George Cadbury, A.G.

Gardiner writes that a “momentous decision" was taken in 1879: to move the factory from city to country. “The two main lines of action—the efficiency of business and the welfare of workers—were successfully carried out," he writes. The site chosen by the brothers was scenic: 14.5 acres of land with a meadow and a stream called the Bourn.