Fry's Cream Easter Egg, 159g

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Don’t forget to get everything you need in for your Easter tea though. Our range of Easter cakes make a delicious addition to your finger food buffet after a delicious Easter roast. Even once eggs were permitted in fasting meals, they kept a special place in the Easter feast. Seventeenth-century cookbook author John Murrell recommended "egges with greene sawce", a sort of pesto made with sorrel leaves.

A lot of Easter traditions — including hot cross buns and lamb on Sunday — stem from medieval Christian or even earlier pagan beliefs. The chocolate Easter egg, however, is a more modern twist on tradition. Around the world, the likes of France and Germany had been making chocolate eggs for many years before the UK, but these eggs had been made from solid chocolate. Fry’s had been the first to figure out how to use moulds and make hollow eggs. This had been achieved through the Fry family’s innovations in making chocolate by mixing cocoa fat with cocoa powder and sugar. This made a smooth paste which could be poured into egg moulds. Coe, Sophie D. (2015) [1994]. America's First Cuisines. University of Texas Press. pp.56–57. ISBN 9781477309711. Most sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century cacao was for drinking, but its consumption in solid form was not unheard of. To make a drink out of processed cacao beans they must be ground, and then, unless they are immediately made into a drink, the mass congeals. [...] A tablet of this nature could be dissolved in hot water to make the breakfast chocolate, but it could also be nibbled. [...] 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. Its dormant status can be explained by the fact that in 1919, J. S. Fry & Sons merged with the increasingly popular chocolate company, Cadbury. Left): Advertisement c. 1910; (right): Drink FRY'S pure breakfast COCOA. "No Better Food". Advertisement for Fry's on the cover of The Strand Magazine, September 1917

Despite the closure of the Frys/Cadbury factory at Keynsham just over 20 years ago, our region is today home to many, many independent chocolate makers - using creative talent and ethical practices including fairly traded chocolate. The commitment from chocolate companies to learn from the past actions, both good and bad, of their predecessors is important. At a time when celebrating a truly great event is taking place, if you want to teat someone you know to a representative gift of that event, then we have you covered. Peruse our Easter fare online at your leisure. Remember to add a free gift card to make things just a little more special this Easter. The Fry’s eggs were so successful that rivals Cadbury copied the idea two years later, paving the way for countless more imitations and an enduring global tradition. It was no accident that Fry’s were the innovators in the field; they had, after all, already been delighting customers with their chocolate treats for more than a century. Chocolate was soon a fashionable drink for the aristocracy, often given as a gift thanks to its high status, a tradition still followed today. It was also enjoyed in the newly opened coffee houses around London. Coffee and tea had also only just been introduced to England and all three drinks were rapidly changing how Britons socially interacted with each other.

With rising concerns over long-term chocolate production and bird flu provoked egg shortages, future Easters might look a little different. But if there is one thing that Easter eggs can show us, it's the adaptability of tradition. For the Victorians, chocolate was much more accessible but still something of an indulgence. Thirty years later, in 1873, Fry's developed the first chocolate Easter egg as a luxury treat, merging the two gift-giving traditions. Fry, alongside Cadbury and Rowntree's, was one of the big three British confectionery manufacturers throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and all three companies were founded by Quakers. [4] [5] The company became a division of Cadbury in the early twentieth century. The division's Somerdale Factory near Bristol was closed after the 2010 takeover of Cadbury's by Kraft Foods Inc. [6] [7] History [ edit ] Fry and Sons Manufactory, Nelson Street, Bristol, 1882 On a larger scale there are some pretty awesome Vegan Iconic Kakoa eggs in white chocolate, caramel and chocolate, created with rice and creamy rich oat milk for unparalleled quality and taste. Add to this the finely crafted geometric design of the shell, and the Viennese chocolates within and you have a sure fire winner this Easter.

So where did it all begin?

Catholic theologians did connect chocolate with Easter in this time, but out of concern that drinking chocolate would go against fasting practices during Lent. After heated debate, it was agreed that chocolate made with water might be acceptable during fasts. At Easter at least — a time of feasting and celebration — chocolate was fine. Today chocolate is thought of as a solid food, but then it was only ever a drink and was usually spiced with chilli pepper following Aztec and Maya traditions. For the English, this exotic new drink was like nothing they'd ever encountered. One author called it the "American Nectar": a drink for the gods. It's not known exactly when people started to decorate their eggs, but research has pointed to the 13th century, when King Edward I gave his courtiers eggs wrapped in gold leaf.

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. [17] Today it is common practice to give children, and fortunately adults too, chocolate eggs and chocolate gifts at Easter. Why is this and from where did it arise? Across Europe, eggs were also given as a tithe (a sort of yearly rent) to the local church on Good Friday. This might be where the idea of giving eggs as a gift comes from. The practice died out in many Protestant areas after the Reformation, but some English villages kept the tradition going until the 19th century. 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". Under Egbert Cadbury the Fry's division began from 1923 to move to Somerdale, Keynsham, just outside Bristol. After 1981 the name Fry's was no longer in use at Somerdale; however, the factory was still a major producer of Cadbury's products. As Quakers, Fry’s were one of the leading voices in the movement to abolish slavery. However in 1908 there was a major scandal with Cadbury, Fry and Rowntree being accused of buying slave grown cocoa beans from Sao Tome and Principe, a Portuguese owned island off of Angola. Cadbury took the major role in defending the 3 companies and in the end, they were found not guilty. Despite this, all 3 stopped buying beans from this island.

What happened to Fry’s Easter egg?

In 1847, the Fry's chocolate factory on Union Street, Bristol, moulded a chocolate bar suitable for large-scale production. [1] [3] The firm began producing the Fry's Chocolate Cream bar in 1866. [1] Although it was not unheard of cacao being consumed in solid form, [9] Fry's is considered the first chocolate bar suitable for widespread consumption. [2] [3] [10] 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. [11] 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. [12]