Charlotte Coles
BBC
A chocolate bar has been made using entirely British ingredients for the first time in nearly a century, with cocoa from not Brazil or Bali, but Berkshire.
Created at the University of Reading, it was named the Reading 100 Chocolate Bar to mark the university’s 100th anniversary.
It is the first of its kind since 1932, when Rowntree’s gifted a six-year-old Princess Elizabeth the only other bar of UK-grown chocolate ever made.
Food security master’s student Maha Khan created the chocolate bar by harvesting, fermenting and processing the Reading-grown cocoa.
While the UK’s chocolate market is worth £10.4bn, it is entirely reliant on imported cocoa.
Maha told the Today programme she made the bar to highlight the challenges facing the cocoa growing industry.
She said: “It is incredible that we can make 100% British chocolate – but in the context of climate change, pests and diseases, there are estimates that 30 to 40% is lost.
“And we’ve seen with these heatwaves, climate change, these problems and challenges are only going to get exacerbated.”
The cocoa was grown at the University of Reading’s International Cocoa Quarantine Centre, a collection of more than 300 types of cocoa plant.
The climate-controlled centre in Berkshire is carefully managed to prevent the spread of pests and diseases between different cocoa-growing regions of the world, while also providing scientists with the opportunity to study the plants.
Maha said it was important to highlight the research being done at centre “which not many people are aware of”.
“It is the primary hub of transfer for 97% of cocoa growing countries,” she said.
“So the cocoa is quarantined there for two years, and so from those plants that are growing I decided to make this chocolate bar.”
