Cadbury marks 200 years with a £350,000 archive

Cadbury has marked its 200th anniversary by unveiling its newly refurbished UK archive, a £350,000 collection documenting two centuries of Birmingham chocolate.

The archive, unveiled on 17 March, holds more than 50,000 Cadbury items, including the history of its packaging, artworks and discontinued products. Owner Mondelez International plans to open it to the public at a later date.

From Bull Street to Bournville

The company's story began on 4 March 1824, when John Cadbury, a Quaker, started selling tea, coffee and drinking chocolate from a shop on Bull Street in Birmingham.

From 1831 he moved into making cocoa and drinking chocolate in a factory on Bridge Street, selling mainly to the wealthy because it was so expensive to produce. In 1842 he began selling chocolate for eating, possibly the first in Britain.

In 1847 he went into partnership with his brother Benjamin, and the business became Cadbury Brothers. The company introduced its first chocolate bar in 1849, displaying it at a trade fair at Bingley Hall in Birmingham the same year, and in 1854 it was granted a royal warrant as chocolate and cocoa maker to Queen Victoria.

A global name

Cadbury merged with Bristol rival J. S. Fry and Sons in 1919 and with Schweppes in 1969. For decades it was one of the best-known British companies, and was a member of the FTSE 100 from the index's launch in 1984 until it was bought by Kraft Foods in 2010. It is now part of Mondelez International.

Sir Adrian Cadbury, who chaired the company for 24 years, produced the influential Cadbury Report in 1992, a code of best practice that shaped corporate governance around the world.

Celebrating the bicentenary

In January, Mondelez announced plans to mark the anniversary with promotions, celebrations and seven retro packaging designs for Cadbury Dairy Milk, drawing on the brand's long history.

The archive opening comes just after the anniversary of John Cadbury's first shop, and gives the company a permanent home for its history in the city where it began.

Bournville

Cadbury's name is inseparable from Bournville, the model village the family built around its factory in the south of the city, and from Cadbury World, the visitor attraction next door, which remains one of Birmingham's most popular days out.

Two hundred years on, Cadbury chocolate is still made in Bournville.

Chocolate bars were new at the time. In 1847 Cadbury's rival Fry's of Bristol produced the first chocolate bar, and Cadbury introduced its own two years later. The brothers also opened an office in London as the business grew.