Cadbury - Fruit and Nut small bars - Oct. 3, 2017

Chocolate of the Day: 

Mondelez U.K.
Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit and Nut bar
Good
Weight: 1.27 oz. (36 g.) / 5.5 oz. (153 g.) in total package of 12
Calories: 180 calories in 1 serving (3 packets)
Cost: $3.50 for 1 package (2 for $7.00)
Purchased from: Safeway, Palo Alto, CA

Welcome to Day #3 of Cadbury Chocolate Theme Week.

Today's package contained individually-wrapped small Cadbury Fruit and Nut milk chocolates (from Mondelez International/U.K.*).

The small 2-square, segmented rectangular pieces, stamped with the Cadbury logo, contained bits of raisins and almonds. (Early recipes apparently also contained Brasil nuts.)

These chocolates were a variation on the classic Fruit and Nut milk chocolate bar that was first introduced in the 1926 as Cadbury's Fruit and Nut bar. (In 2003 the company added the "Dairy Milk" designation.)

It's hard to write about long-lived, large companies like Cadbury without delving into history. Like many purveyors of cocoa in the early 1800s, John Cadbury and his brother started with tea, coffee and drinking chocolate.

Chocolate bars came later. And today's milk chocolate bar as we know it was not perfected yet; although the Swiss, French, British and others (including, later, Milton S. Hershey in the U.S.) were all vying for the a milk chocolate formula that would result in a viable milk chocolate bar.

Cadbury announced their first milk chocolate bar in 1897 (one of the first in the U.K.) and the Dairy Milk chocolate brand followed in 1905.)

Interestingly, today's product was distributed in the U.S. by The Hershey Company (Hershey, PA), under license from Cadbury UK Ltd. Hershey founder, Milton S. Hershey, traveled to Europe and the U.K. and would have seen what the Cadburys were doing. Hershey's development of a "model town", and boys school in Hershey, PA was likely modeled, at least in part, after Cadbury worker housing and other community projects for less well-to-do citizens.

*Mondelez International (formerly known as Kraft/Kraft Foods) has owned the British confectionery company since 2010.