Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers

This is Deborah Cadbury of THE Cadbury family.  She writes about Cadbury, Hershey, Nestle, and  other companies and the development of chocolate as a food product.  It begins with people wondering what to do with this bean to make money with it.  It includes information about developing these products, finding the cocoa beans, growing the beans in new locales around the world, marketing to different cultures i.e. convincing people they need it and on and on and is fascinating.  For me the most interesting part however, was about the business models used.  I learned how a business can grow from that one individual businessman with decent morals, to an international corporation willing to use slave labor for a buck.  Is it grow or die or are their alternatives?  My favorite quotation:"The problem with the way we have developed our system of shareholder capitalism is that the shareholder is being divorced from his role in ownership," explains Sir Dominic Cadbury, the last family chairman.Cadbury and a few other chocolate makers were practicing Quakers and wanted to use their business in service of their faith.  Some of their guiding beliefs for business are:Keep your word.Do not go into debt or bankruptcy.Watch over other Quaker businesses and advise their owners when they appear to be in trouble or making poor or unethical decisions, and take influence from them yourself.As the Industrial Revolution built momentum, they were warned against paper credit and that warning was added to their written guidelines.They had meetings monthly with other Quaker business leaders and discussed business principles, check  that their ethics and beliefs are  in line with their actions and if not, after repeated warnings were given, they would be disowned by the Society of Friends.  As wealth grew, additional guidelines were added warning Friends that accumulation of riches for oneself was not acceptable.  Annually they met with other Quaker business leaders from a larger geographic area requiring travel, to address these ideas also.  They thus developed written ethical guidelines and business guidelines and helped each other succeed financially also.  As wealth continued to build, guidelines were also written for children of rich Quakers to ensure they were not corrupted.  Of course those are basically just decent principles for living, right? This book is the story of the attempt to fulfill that Quaker purpose.   Many succeeded as did the Cadburys initially, but when problems continued to arise with the growth of industrialization, the first break for the Cadburys with their ethics was they began advertising.  Other companies were having great success advertising already, and Cadbury joined in.  They believed they were selling an excellent product in their drinking chocolate that was both good for health, and an optional substitute for alcohol which was causing great problems.  In this way they justified their decision to advertise, but it was a definite break from their religious ethics.Some other things these Quaker businessmen did was build housing for their employees and help them to buy them.  The housing community areas  included green space, gardens (with gardeners to teach them how to raise food), swimming pools, tennis courts and other amenities.  Cadbury also provided education and health care.  These sound admirable at first glance, but seem to some to be rather paternalistic.  How about you pay your employees a fair living wage so that they can afford to choose their own housing, education and medical care?  The Cadburys and others also did much philanthropical work but again, how about you pay people enough that they don't need your charity?  This idea is also addressed in the book with a quotation from a theologian from Dartmouth, William Jewitt Tucker, "I can conceive of no greater mistake, more disastrous in the end to religion, if not to society, than of trying to make charity do the work of justice."There are just a multitude of ideas in this book that are so important, and really have not changed today.  As the Cadburys (and other families also) attempt to do good things, they keep getting stymied.  This might be a good place to discuss the existence of altruism - is there such a thing? At any rate, they are almost universally stymied in their efforts, whether altruistic or not.  For example, they learn that slavery is being used by their cocoa bean sources.  When they decide to  boycott those growers, or go to another supplier, the British government suggest that other buyers will just take their place, whereas if they wait and work with the British government they can put pressure on the Portuguese government to not  only end slavery but reform labor practices holistically.  Cadbury agrees to do this somewhat undercover, but word gets out and they are crucified in the press for not boycotting immediately.  Again, when Cadbury decides to buy a newspaper or two to disseminate information (read propaganda) supporting their beliefs, that is antiwar and pro labor, they are again accused of hypocrisy when it is made known that their newspaper has continued advertising for gambling, while they preach against it.  Cadbury believed the paper would go bankrupt without that advertising (based on previous experiences) and decided it would be better to have a paper with gambling info and antiwar sentiments, rather than just the one paper with gambling advertising and pro war sentiments.  Cadbury also addresses the effects of two world wars on business.  When WWI began, Cadbury put a lot thought of thought into what would be the appropriate use for a Quaker's wealth under those circumstances.  One of the things that came out of that was ambulance support and workers.  I can appreciate conscientious objectors, but what does this ambulance support mean?  I support your war enough to risk my life taking care of you but not to kill someone else, only to make it easier for YOU to kill someone else?  Interesting interpretation.The end of the story is basically, everyone gets taken over and becomes too large to be accountable.  What remains today of the philanthropy or good works of Cadbury and I believe Hershey also, are trusts that are separate from the business.If you look at corporations today and wonder how the heck we got in this greedy mess, with CEOs who make 300 times what their workers do, this is a good example of how it all works.  4.5 stars - would have been 5 but it was sometimes hard to track the info and stories because of the breadth of info.  I haven't even begun to touch on the material covered in this book..

Just finished reading  Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers . I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves chocolate and a good story about business, creativity and competition.Chocolate Wars is the story of early chocolatiers and their passion not only for chocolate and the chocolate business, but for the world of man that they lived in. Many of these confectionary pioneers were Quakers and did business with a very different outlook that the corporate world we know today. These Quakers did God's work through chocolate. Families such as Cadbury, Fry, Roundtree and Hershey - all competed with each other in a Quaker way, but more importantly all felt a responsibility to give back to the community. They felt that their businesses existed for more reasons than just to make money.So the money they did make - and they made a lot of it - went back into the community in the forms of Utopian towns such as Bournville, England and Hershey, PA that offered affordable housing for their workers, sports fields and facilities, social clubs, schools, open areas, and gardens. They built so-called "garden" factories that were out in the fresh air of the country instead of the stifling air of the city.As Quakers, they were not supposed to accumulate personal wealth and from the beginning their plans always included setting up trusts for charities, reformatories, hospitals, etc., for the less fortunate of society. Back in the 1800s, there were many who were "less fortunate." They were so passionate about these society responsibilities in fact, that they felt much pressure for their businesses to succeed and be profitable because they knew how vital those profits would be for the poor.George Cadbury Sr. liked to say "doing good...is good for business," and I believe he was right on the money. We've lost that however, and it is sad to note that many of these great chocolate pioneers with their wonderful sense of purpose have now been all but lost to huge multi-nationals. To be fair these massive conglomerates do have departments concerned with giving back, going green, etc. But somehow it is so much less personal than it was for the Quaker chocolate makers. For companies like Kraft and Nestle it is a business decision to "give back", good P.R., if you will. For the Cadburys and Hersheys, the obligation was so much more meaningful - and I dare say, effective.

Very fascinating read!! Couldn’t put it down since it came through the letterbox.It was a very interesting insight to how the ‘simple’ chocolate bar was created and how the early chocolatiersshaped living in the 19th century.

Great present for the man who thinks he knows everything about chocolate. He had his nose in it for ages.

Great book

I really enjoyed reading this very interesting history of the Cadbury brothers.

An excellent history of the great chocolate firms of the world.