The untold story of Dairy Milk
The precise history of milk chocolate’s origins is not an uncontroversial subject and deep in the Cadbury archives in Bournville, lies a cache of papers, letters and lectures detailing Cadbury Brothers exploration of the question in 1926, including recorded recollections from JH Palmer, one of the the Dairy Milk production team.
The ‘firm’s view’ was captured for the record in the Bournville Works Magazine in April 1955, to mark the Jubilee of ‘C.D.M.’ The origins of milk chocolate, it argued, lay with Sir Hans Sloan who popularised the idea of mixing milk and chocolate before handing the recipe to the White family from who Cadbury’s Brothers bought it.
Sloan’s recipe however was for drinking chocolate. The first to actually pioneer milk chocolate itself, certainly for industrial production was Daniel Peter, a manufacturer near Lausanne who began serious production — and export to Britain — in 1895. Its popularity encouraged serious research by Cadbury’s team from the late 1890s. By the early part of the 20th century, the Swiss were exporting 30 tons a week. But as George Cadbury Jnr, recalled in a speech that lies in the Cadbury archives; ‘None of the English milk chocolates made at the time was of a very high class.’
The problem was that Cadbury’s were attempting milk chocolate made of dried milk powder sent in from Buckingham which said Cadbury Jnr had an ‘unpleasant oily taste and odour, rather what one would term ‘strong butter’ characteristics’. The firm kept up the research, briefing its Travellers in 1899;
‘We have already made considerable improvements in this line…We hope to send fresh samples before long but think it best not to do so till further experiments are complete”.
George Cadbury Jnr then spent time in Switzerland studying production techniques for condensing milk and realising the firm needed to incorporate solids of fresh full cream milk, the firm built its own milk condensing plant at Bournville. Production techniques however were a process of trial and error. Reminiscing, George Cadbury Jnr recalled;
‘I still remember those early experiments and the difficulties we had in controlling the boiling and frothing over of the milk…The product of course was a sticky mess’.
Over the months that followed Cadbury Jnr’s team — the chief chemist, a confectioner, the chief engineer and the foreman — strove for a product with a far higher milk content and by July 1904, perfected their samples for what would become Cadbury’s Dairy Maid.
On 9th August 1904, ‘the Board Minute says: ‘Agreed if possible to adopt the name ‘Dairy Milk Chocolate’ with plain label,of say blue and white’ based, it is said on advice from a customer. In Plymouth, one Mrs EM Creacy, whose parents owned a confectionary business in Plymouth, heard of the new product from a visiting Cadbury’s salesman. ‘We are bringing out a new chocolate that will sweep the country — Cadbury’s Dairy Maid’ he said. ‘Dairy Maid’ I replied ‘I wonder you don’t call it Dairy Milk — it is a much daintier name’.
A large slab of Dairy Milk chocolate was her reward and a marketing revolution was set in train. Dairy Milk’s wrapping reflected its creaminess; gold and black on a pale lavender background with words ‘Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate’ encircled a tub of milk. Nation-wide, outstanding posters, designed by Cecil Aldin boasted a ‘glass and a half of milk in every half-pound bar’ were plastered everywhere.
George Cadbury Jnr had initially suggested a production run of 20 tons of week. The board proposed five and within a decade, output was up 10-fold and Dairy Milk was going into everything from chocolate bars to Easter eggs to a new milk assortments brand, known as Milk Tray in 1/2 lb — ‘the box for your pocket’ — and 1lb boxes, sparking a new market for popular boxed chocolates.
In 1906, amidst the savage price war, the ‘A’ companies met to talk. Fry’s and Cadbury’s attacked Rowntree’s new discounting scheme and threatened to introduce something similar unless it was withdrawn. A new agreement was struck on marketing and prices, but in truth Cadbury’s was simply preparing the ground for its follow-up product to Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, Bournville Essence, a flavoured, alkalised cocoa. Cadbury’s promptly slashed prices of its cheap bar chocolate and together with Fry’s refused a coordinated price rise as the price of cocoa imports rose, forcing Rowntrees to withdraw their leading Mountain Milk Chocolate brand.
It was another year, before George Cadbury induced his rivals to agree a truce; while the price war would continue, advertising spend would, agreed the firms, come down by 25%. George Cadbury was now on the final lap of the race that would make him the biggest chocolate maker in England.
