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J. S. Fry & Sons

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J. S. Fry & Sons
Formerly
  • Fry, Vaughan & Co (1761–1787)
  • Anna Fry & Son (1787–1822)
Company typePrivate (1761–1919)
IndustryConfectionery
Founded1761 in Bristol
FounderJoseph Fry
Defunct2010; 15 years ago (2010)
FateMerged with Cadbury Brothers in 1919. Loss of operational independence in 1967. Original factory closed 2011.
Headquarters
Keynsham
,
United Kingdom
Key people
Joseph Storrs Fry II
ProductsChocolate
Brands
ParentCadbury (1919–2010)

J. S. Fry & Sons, Ltd., better known as Fry's, was a British chocolate company owned by Joseph Storrs Fry and his family. Beginning in Bristol in 1761, the business went through several changes of name and ownership, becoming J. S. Fry & Sons in 1822. In 1847, Fry's produced what is often considered the first solid chocolate bar. The company also created the first filled chocolate sweet, Cream Sticks, in 1853.[1] Fry is most famous for Fry's Chocolate Cream, the first mass-produced chocolate bar, which was launched in 1866, and Fry's Turkish Delight, launched in 1914.[1]

Fry, alongside Cadbury and Rowntree's, was one of the big three British confectionery manufacturers throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries, and all three companies were founded by Quakers.[2][3] The company became a division of Cadbury in the early 20th century. The division's Somerdale Factory near Bristol was closed after the 2010 takeover of Cadbury's by Kraft Foods Inc.[4][5]

History

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Early history

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Fry and Sons Manufactory, Nelson Street, Bristol, 1882

Joseph Fry, a Quaker, was born in 1728. He started making chocolate around 1759. In 1761, Fry and John Vaughan purchased a small shop from an apothecary, Walter Churchman, and with it the patent for a chocolate refining process.[3][6] The company was then named Fry, Vaughan & Co. In 1777 the chocolate works moved from Newgate Street to Union Street, Bristol. Joseph Fry died in 1787 and the company was renamed Anna Fry & Son. In 1795 Joseph Storrs Fry assumed control of the company. He patented a method of grinding cocoa beans using a Watt steam engine, and as a result, factory techniques were introduced into the cocoa business.[7]

(Left): Advertisement c. 1910, "Five Boys" chocolate bar; (right): Drink FRY'S pure breakfast COCOA. "No Better Food". Advertisement for Fry's on the cover of The Strand Magazine, September 1917

In 1803, Anna Fry died and Joseph Storrs Fry partnered with a Dr. Hunt. The business was renamed Fry & Hunt. In 1822 Hunt retired and Joseph Storrs Fry took on his sons Joseph, Francis and Richard as partners: the firm was renamed J. S. Fry & Sons. The company became the largest commercial producer of chocolate in the UK. In 1835, Joseph Storrs Fry died and his sons took full control.

Modern history and eating chocolate

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In the 1840s, eating chocolate appeared in Britain; "French Eating Chocolate" was sold by Cadbury as early as 1842.[8]

In 1847, the Fry's chocolate factory moulded an eating chocolate bar, often considered the first of its kind.[9][1][10] It was marketed as Chocolat Délicieux à Manger[11] and was probably inspired by French chocolates.[12][13] The firm also began producing the Fry's Chocolate Cream bar in 1866.[1] Although chocolate had already been used in confectionery before,[14] this was probably the first mass-produced chocolate candy bar.[15] Over 220 products were introduced in the following decades, including the UK's first chocolate Easter egg in 1873 and Fry's Turkish Delight (or Fry's Turkish bar) in 1914.[16] The production of eating chocolate rose from about 10 tonnes in 1852 to over 1,100 tonnes in 1880; a Van Houten press was acquired and installed in 1868.[12] In 1896, the firm became a registered private company, run by the Fry family, with Joseph Storrs Fry II, grandson of the first Joseph Storrs Fry, as the chairman.[17]

Tom Browne‘s advertisement postcard for Fry's chocolate, 1912

In 1881, an employee of Fry's, H. J. Packer, established his own chocolate business in Bristol. At its eventual home in Greenbank, Bristol, Packer's Chocolate continued to provide local competition for Fry's until 2006, under various owners and brands, from Bonds through to Famous Names and Elizabeth Shaw.[18]

Somerdale Factory, date uncertain

Near the start of World War I, the company was one of the largest employers in Bristol. Joseph Storrs Fry II died in 1913. In 1919 the company merged with Cadbury's chocolate and the joint company was named British Cocoa and Chocolate Company. After the merger, the Frys held 45.44% of the company's ordinary shares, as well as chairmanship and four seats on the company board.[19] Under Egbert Cadbury the Fry's division began from 1923 to move to Somerdale, Keynsham, just outside Bristol. The Fry family's representation on the company board decreased as British Cocoa and Chocolate Company expanded operations and opened factories in other countries. By the time Cadbury merged with Schweppes in 1969, only one Fry family member remained on the thirteen-seat company board, and the family held just over 10 percent of the ordinary shares.[19]

After 1981, the name Fry's was no longer in use at Somerdale; however, the factory was still a major producer of Cadbury products.[citation needed]

In October 2007, Cadbury announced plans to close the Somerdale plant, the historic home of the Fry's Factory, by 2010 with the loss of some 500 jobs. In an effort to maintain competitiveness in a global marketplace, production was to be moved to a new factory in Poland. Another motivational factor was the high value of the land. Labour MP for Wansdyke, Dan Norris, said, "News of the factory's closure is a hard and heavy blow, not just to the workforce, but to the Keynsham community as a whole".[20]

In February 2010, following the takeover of Cadbury plc by Kraft Foods, the closure was controversially confirmed to take place in 2011; Kraft had specifically agreed during the takeover battle to keep the site open. There was widespread outrage in the press and later a House of Commons Select Committee investigation into the affair.[21]

Archives

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Records relating to both the business and the family are held at Bristol Archives (Ref. 38538). Some records concerning the role of J. S. Fry & Sons within Cadbury are held with the Mondelez International repository at Cadbury's UK headquarters in Bournville.[22]

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Fry's advertisement in an 1867 edition of Punch magazine
Advertisement with the distinctive "Five Boys", displayed in the Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery

On the BBC television programme Being Human, an old Fry's Cocoa billboard hangs prominently on the side of the B&B where the main characters reside in Series 3–5. The billboard is a nod to the show's original Bristol location.[23]

In April 2020, an original enamel advertising sign with the distinctive "five boys" trademark design was featured on BBC's Antiques Roadshow and was valued at £1,000-£1,500.[24] The distinctive "five boys" design expressing "Desperation, Pacification, Expectation, Acclamation and Realisation "It's Fry's" references Queen Alexandra, indicating a production date before her death in 1925. On a tour of the Fry's Bristol factory when in his eighties, Lindsay Poulton, the boy featured in the design, recalled that his father had induced him to cry, for the first photograph, "Desperation", by wrapping an ammonia-soaked cloth around his neck.[25]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Mintz, Sidney (2015). The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets. Oxford University Press. p. 157.
  2. ^ Richardson, Tim (2002). "Sweets: A History of Temptation". p. 255. Bantam Press
  3. ^ a b Jackson, Peter (20 January 2010). "How did Quakers conquer the British sweet shop?". BBC News. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  4. ^ Case study: Kraft’s takeover of Cadbury - Scott Moeller, JANUARY 9 2012 on The Financial Times
  5. ^ Kraft completes takeover of Cadbury by Joe Fernandez on Marketing Week, 2 Feb 2010
  6. ^ "Desert Island Doc, A Charter for Chocolate". Retrieved 7 June 2016.
  7. ^ Swinnen, Johan F. M.; Squicciarini, Mara P. (2016). The Economics of Chocolate. Oxford University Press. p. 17. In 1847, the British chocolate company Fry & Sons prepared the first chocolate bars (solid chocolate for eating) by mixing cocoa powder, sugar, and cocoa butter (instead of water)
  8. ^ Wagner, Gillian (1987). The Chocolate Conscience. Chatto & Windus. p. 16. It is not known when eating chocolate was first sold in Britain. It appeared on Cadbury's price list in 1842, but the firm advertised only one brand and that appeared to have been imported from France as it was listed as 'French Eating Chocolate'.
  9. ^ Khodorowsky, Katherine (2009). Tout sur le chocolat. Odile Jacob. p. 47. ISBN 978-2-7381-9390-2. et certains la considèrent comme la première tablette industrielle (oubliant celle de Menier en 1836) [and some consider it the first industrial tablet (forgetting that of Menier in 1836)]
  10. ^ "J. S. Fry & Sons Chocolate Tin". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 31 October 2023. In 1847, Fry's made the first molded chocolate eating bar by removing excess cocoa butter, then slowly adding it back into the melted chocolate
  11. ^ Davidson, Alan (2006). "Chocolate in the 19th and 20th centuries". The Oxford Companion to Food. and by 1847 Fry's were marketing 'Chocolat Délicieux à Manger'
  12. ^ a b Clarence-Smith, William Gervase (2003). "Slow mechanisation, 1850s-1870s". Cocoa and Chocolate, 1765-1914. Taylor & Francis. pp. 53–54. However, Fry's experimented with eating chocolate, copying French assortments and producing 'chocolate creams' [...] Sales of eating chocolate rose from about ten tonnes in 1852 to over 1,100 tonnes in 1880
  13. ^ Webster, Thomas (1844). An Encyclopaedia of Domestic Economy. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. p. 718. Chocolat à manger is a preparation of chocolate, originally French, made up with sugar into small long cakes for eating.
  14. ^ Coe, Sophie D. (2015) [1994]. America's First Cuisines. University of Texas Press. pp. 56–57. ISBN 9781477309711. There is no way of exactly dating the birth of the chocolate confection [...] With the addition of sugar this began the production of what are called modern chocolates. Many people take it to mean that solid chocolate was not eaten before Van Houten's time, but as the preceding paragraph has shown, this is not so.
  15. ^ Decker, Fred (29 November 2024). "30 Popular Candies That Are Way Older Than You Think". Tasting Table. Retrieved 16 January 2025. Fry's Cream Stick was the first mass-manufactured chocolate candy, in 1853, and was then relaunched in modern bar form in 1866 as Fry's Chocolate Cream.
  16. ^ Chrystal, Paul (2013). Chocolate: The British Chocolate Industry. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 21.
  17. ^ William Gervase Clarence-Smith (2003). Cocoa and Chocolate, 1765-1914. Routledge. p. 58. ISBN 0-203-46186-X.
  18. ^ "Greenbank Factory History" (PDF). John Penny. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016.
  19. ^ a b Franks, Julian; Mayer, Colin; Rossi, Stefano (2005). "Spending Less Time with the Family: The Decline of Family Ownership in the United Kingdom". In Morck, Randall K. (ed.). A History of Corporate Governance around the World: Family Business Groups to Professional Mergers. University of Chicago Press. pp. 600–601. ISBN 0-226-53680-7.
  20. ^ "Cadbury factories shed 700 jobs". BBC News. 3 October 2007. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
  21. ^ "Cadbury's Bristol plant to close by 2011". BBC News. 9 February 2010. Retrieved 19 April 2010.
  22. ^ "National Archives Discovery Catalogue, records page". Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  23. ^ "BBC Three's Being Human moves from Bristol to Wales". BBC News. 29 January 2010.
  24. ^ "Antiques Roadshow - Series 42: Castle Ward 2". Retrieved 27 April 2020 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
  25. ^ Byrne, Eugene; Chipperfield, Daniel (21 April 2019). "Fascinating facts about Bristol's chocolate history". bristolpost. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
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