Cadbury Brothers Ltd, 1861-, Bourneville, Birmingham

John Cadbury was only twenty two years old when he opened his shop in 1824 at 93 Bull Street in the then fashionable part of Birmingham. The shop was next door to his father's drapery and silk business and apart from selling tea and coffee, John Cadbury sold hops, mustard and a new sideline - cocoa and drinking chocolate, which he prepared himself using a mortar and pestle. Customers at John Cadbury's shop were amongst the most prosperous Birmingham families who were the only ones who could afford to buy cocoa and chocolate. In those days cocoa beans were imported from South and Central America and the West Indies.

By 1831 the business had changed from a grocery shop and John Cadbury had become a manufacturer of drinking chocolate and cocoa. In 1847 a larger factory in Bridge Street off Broad Street in the centre of Birmingham was rented. John Cadbury took his brother Benjamin into partnership and the family business became Cadbury Brothers of Birmingham. During the mid 1850s business began to decline. The partnership between the first Cadbury brothers was dissolved in 1860. John Cadbury's sons Richard and George, who had joined the company in 1850 and 1856, became the second Cadbury brothers to run the business. 1866 saw a turning point for the company with the introduction of a process for pressing the cocoa butter from the cocoa beans. This not only enabled Cadbury Brothers to produce pure cocoa essence, but the plentiful supply of cocoa butter remaining was also used to make new kinds of eating chocolate.

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