Chocolate Wars

Modern day Americans would quickly answer Hershey’s or Mars, maybe even Nestle, if asked to name the biggest chocolate manufacturers in the world.  Most wouldn’t be able to tell you where the world’s chocolate originates, or even the difference between milk chocolate and semi-sweet, let alone who started the chocolate revolution of the early 1900’s.  Chocolate Wars: The 150-year rivalry between the world’s greatest chocolate makers serves to educate readers on the early struggles of the industry through the Industrial Revolution through to modern day hostile take overs and corporate buy outs.

Deborah Cadbury delivers a historical look at how the chocolate industry almost wasn’t in her book Chocolate Wars.  As her name implied, Cadbury has had an intimate look at chocolate operations in one of Brittain’s most well-known brands as the niece of the Cadbury confectioners.  While the author spends a majority of this book focused on the Cadbury family’s business and that of other British chocolatiers, she does include knowledge of other world-wide influences from the American Hershey to the source of the cacao needed to develop their sweets.  The BBC producer relies strongly on her family roots but also her professional skills as a documentarian to take readers through the sometimes-mundane details.  This is a book about corporate rivalry complete with espionage, but more so about what Cadbury terms as Quaker Capitalism and the need to do good in the world.

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I give Chocolate Wars 3 out of 5 stars.  While I enjoyed the history of the chocolate industry, the author lost me in some of the details.  Sections of this book read like historical fiction, connecting the reader with the early confectioners’ struggles to develop a product that would be loved by consumers and also to support their families.  However, other sections of this book were fact-heavy and left me feeling as though this was purely a history textbook.  I was also disappointed to find that the author relied so heavily on her familial knowledge that other chocolatiers were in large part ignored and only appeared when they directly crossed paths with the Cadbury family or dealt with a parallel challenge.  For me, this shows the author’s lack of research into a topic they may have thought they knew well.  I do appreciate that the story doesn’t stop when success was found for the Cadbury family – the author continues through to a modern timeline of merger and take over negotiations. 

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If you are interested in learning more about how chocolate came to be the sugary sweet confection, we can pick up at the grocery store check-out counter and its global impacts, this book is a perfect starting point.  As mentioned above, this book may be skewed towards one family or region of chocolate development, therefore may not be ideal for someone looking for an unbiased documentation of the industry.  I would also recommend this book for readers interested in the Industrial Revolution.  When I think of that era, I often think of names like Ford or Carnegie, but the great chocolate brands were engineering new and better ways to develop their chocolate for both quality and efficiency.  This would also be a great book for readers looking to learn more about Quaker Capitalism and the cultural impact on the business world.

I chose Chocolate Wars for the Read With Lindsey Reading Challenge prompt “rose or candy themed”.  I have a weak spot for chocolate and have always found the Hershey-Mars competition interesting.  My two favorite treats are Hershey’s Kisses and the Rowntree-originated Kit Kat Bar.  To be quite fair, I didn’t know much about British confectioners, so this book helped to fill some gaps.  With that said, I wish it had been less of a historian’s view on the industry and more of a story-telling opportunity, especially given the author’s personal connection to the brand she focused on so fully.  I will say reading this book has me viewing my favorite treats in a new light…and made me crave them a little more!

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What I’m Reading

• Current print book: Toxic Prey, John Sandford
• Current audio book: tbd
• Book I’m most looking forward to: Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert