Chocolate was first identified between 2000-500BC when it grew wild in Central America and was used purely as a drink. The Cacao bean was also used as money with 100 beans the payment for a slave.

When Hernan Cortes met Montezuma in 1549, the Spanish explorer was mistaken for their god Quetzalcoatl who had returned from the wilderness. He was showered with gifts including the cocoa bean. The Spanish kept the cocoa bean a secret with only the rich able to afford it.

In 1615 due to the marriage of Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip 11 of Spain, to Louis Xiii the secret of chocolate crossed into France.

By 1650 chocolate had filtered its way to England, but remained for the next 200 years as a drink and still only for the rich.

In 1847 the grandson of Joseph Fry invented a way of mixing cocoa butter with cocoa paste to produce the first chocolate bar. This opened the flood gates and George Cadbury, Joseph Rowntree, and Joseph Storrs Fry started to mass produce chocolate.

Ever since then chocolate has been in the minds of most people with an average of 7oz consumed per person a week. The confectionery industry is now worth well over £5 billion in the UK, with huge advertising for christmas, Valantines Day, Mothers Day, and Easter.