Ok....so I could not think of a better way to open a blog devoted all to chocolate! Cadbury chocolate to be more precise. What a way to celebrate mom's birthday then at Cadbury World in Bourneville, UK (about 4 miles outside of Birmingham). What was originally thought to be the basic factory tour, we quickly realized that the story of Cadbury is a more then expected. We got to see exhibits detailing the history of cocoa bean, from being used as Aztec currency to the fall of Montezuma, to the introduction of drinking chocolate to Europe by Cortez. Then onto the history of the company. Cadbury was started by John Cadbury over 170 years ago in a tea shop on Bull Street in Birmingham. With his sons, George and Richard, they introduced eating chocolate. With more and more products, they grew the company, and drawing on their Quaker background, looked to move to a more country location where the factory workers would have a better quality of life. Bourneville was planned and developed as a community around the Cadbury factory, with an emphasis on community, to include housing for all the workers, recreation clubs, swimming pools, meeting houses, churches, and schools for all ages of children. The Cadbury's introduce
d bonuses, a 5.5 day work week, and shares in the company (these being unheard of in Victorian England). Even today, Cadbury is invested heavily in the communities where it has plants.
After the history, we got to learn how chocolate is made, including Cadbury's best selling product
Dairy Milk. We also got to see how the infamous Cream Eggs are made! A limited tour of the manufacturing and packing areas followed, and then onto the advertising area. We even got to design our own Cadbury ad. And in true tourist trap style, the tour ended in the worlds largest Cadbury shop. All in all, a good day. Of course, the 3 chocolate bars we got as part of admission just sweetened the deal :)
sounds awesome! so what's the secret of making the eggs?
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