Cocoa trees are a native of the central and South American rainforests. They produce pink and white flowers throughout the year, growing in abundance after before the rain starts. However the pods grow straight out of the trunk and the main branches, which is most unusual.
Cocoa trees are a native of the central and South American rainforests. They produce pink and white flowers throughout the year, growing in abundance after before the rain starts. However the pods grow straight out of the trunk and the main branches, which is most unusual.
Cocoa trees are a native of the central and South American rainforests. They produce pink and white flowers throughout the year, growing in abundance after before the rain starts. However the pods grow straight out of the trunk and the main branches, which is most unusual.
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Harvesting and Processing Cocoa Beans 'Theobroma Cacao' The Cocoa Tree n the 18th century the Swedish botanist, Carolus Linnaeus, renamed the cocoa tree giving it the Greek name Theobroma Cacao, now its official botanical name, which literally means 'food of the Gods'. Cocoa trees resemble English apple trees. They grow best under the canopy of tropical rainforests, seldom reaching more than 7.5 metres (25 feet) high. To flourish they need to be shaded from direct sun and wind, particularly in the early growth stages. The cocoa tree has broad, dark leaves about 25cm long, and pale-coloured flowers from which bean pods grow. A native of the central and South American rainforests, cocoa trees are now cultivated in many tropical locations around the world. Two methods are generally used to establish cocoa tree plantations. Young trees are interspersed with new permanent or temporary shade trees such as coconut, plantains and bananas, following the clear-felling of the forest. In large Asian plantations, cocoa trees and coconut trees are planted together and both crops are harvested commercially. Alternatively, forest trees are thinned out and the cocoa trees are planted between established trees. Cocoa trees begin to bear fruit when they are three to four years old. They produce pink and white flowers throughout the year, growing in abundance after before the rain starts. However the pods grow straight out of the trunk and the main branches, which is most unusual. Only a small proportion of the flowers develop into fruit over a period of about five months. The trees are carefully pruned so that pods can be more easily harvested. Each tree yields 20-30 pods per year. It takes the whole year's crop from one tree to make 450gms of Chocolate. Cocoa Pods & Beans
The cocoa tree bears two harvests of cocoa pods per year. Around 20cm in length and 500gms in weight, the pods ripen to a rich, golden-orange colour. Within each pod there are 20-40 purple, 2cm long cocoa beans covered in a sweet white pulp We buy quality cocoa beans from Indonesia, Malaysia and Ghana. The raw beans undergo a lengthy process to prepare them for chocolate making. Types Of Cocoa Pods
There are three broad types of cocoa - Forastero and Criollo, as well as Trinitario, a hybrid of the two. Within these types there are several varieties. Forastero Producing the greater part of all cocoa grown, Forastero is hardy and vigorous, producing beans with the strongest flavour. The Forastero variety most widely grown in West Africa and Brazil is Amelondaro. It has a smooth yellow pod and pale purple beans. Criollo With its mild or weak chocolate flavour, Criollo is grown in Indonesia, Central and South America. Criollo trees are not as hardy and produce softer red pods, containing 20-30 white, ivory or very pale purple beans. Trinitario Plants are not found in the wild as they are cultivated hybrids of the other two types. Trinitario cocoa trees are grown mainly in the Caribbean, but also in Cameroon and Papua New Guinea. The mostly hard pods contain 30 or more beans of variable colour, though white beans are rare. Harvesting and Splitting Cocoa Pods The harvesting of cocoa pods is very labour-intensive. On West African small-holdings the whole family, together with friends and neighbours help out. Ripe pods are gathered every few weeks during the peak season. The high pods are cut with large knives attached to poles, taking care not to damage nearby flowers or buds. The pods are collected in large baskets, which workers carry on their heads, and piled up ready for splitting. The pods are split open by hand and the seeds or beans, which are covered with a sweet white pulp or mucilage, are removed ready to undergo the two-part curing process - fermentation and drying. This prepares the beans for market and is the first stage in the development of the delicious chocolate flavour. Processing the Cocoa Beans
Fermentation Processing cocoa beans ready for chocolate making involves six main steps:
Fermentation During fermentation the cocoa pulp clinging to the beans matures and turns into a liquid, which drains away and the true chocolate flavour starts to develop. Fermentation methods vary considerably from country to country, but there are two basic methods - using heaps and "sweating" boxes. The heap method, traditionally used on farms in West Africa, involves piling wet cocoa beans, surrounded by the pulp, on banana or plantation leaves spread out in a circle on the ground. The heap is covered with more leaves and left for 5-6 days, regularly turned to ensure even fermentation. In large plantations in the West Indies, Latin America and Malaysia, strong wooden boxes with drainage holes or gaps in the slats in the base are used, allowing air and liquid to pass through. This process takes 6-8 days during which time the beans are mixed twice. In Nigeria, cocoa is fermented in baskets lined and covered with leaves. Drying and bagging When fermentation is complete, the wet mass of beans is dried, either traditionally by being spread in the sun on mats or using special drying equipment. The cured beans are packed into sacks for transportation to Singapore, where we process the beans. After quality inspection they are shipped to the our processing factory in Singapore, which produces the basic ingredients from which Cadbury chocolate products are made. On arrival at the factory, the cocoa beans are sorted and cleaned. Winnowing The dried beans are cracked and a stream of air separates the shell from the nib, the small pieces used to make chocolate. Roasting The nibs are roasted in special ovens at temperatures between 105-120 degrees Celsius. The actual roasting time depends on whether the end use is for cocoa or chocolate. During roasting, the cocoa nibs darken to a rich, brown colour and acquire their characteristic chocolate flavour and aroma. This flavour however, actually starts to develop during fermentation. Grinding The roasted nibs are ground in stone mills until the friction and heat of the milling reduces them to a thick chocolate-coloured liquid, known as 'mass.' It contains 53-58% cocoa butter and solidifies on cooling. This is the basis of all chocolate and cocoa products. Pressing The cocoa mass is pressed in powerful machines to extract the cocoa butter, vital to making chocolate. The solid blocks of compressed cocoa remaining after extraction (presscake) are pulverised into a fine powder to produce a high-grade cocoa powder for use as a beverage or in cooking. The cocoa mass, cocoa butter and cocoa powder are then quality inspected and shipped to our factories in Australia and New Zealand, ready to be made into chocolate.
Cadbury Dairy Milk
Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate is one of the major success stories for Cadbury and one of the world's most famous chocolate brands. The New Milk Chocolate
The new milk chocolate was introduced to the British market in 1905 and, with its unique flavour and texture, quickly became the market leader. Milk chocolate was first made by Cadbury in 1897 by blending milk powder with the basic chocolate ingredients of cocoa butter, cocoa mass and sugar. By today's standards the chocolate wasn't particularly good - it was very coarse and dry and neither sweet nor milky enough. At that time, the Swiss dominate the milk chocolate market with a product of superior taste and texture produced by Daniel Peters of Vevey, using condensed milk rather than milk powder. In the early 1900s, George Cadbury Junior and experts at Bournville took on the Swiss, researching new recipes and production methods. By June 1904, the recipe was perfected and a delicious rich and creamy new milk chocolate was ready for production. Launched in 1905, Cadbury proudly boasted that its new milk chocolate was not only "as good as," but better than the European milk chocolate. With its now-famous glass and a half of full-cream milk in every 200gms, it contained far more milk than any previously known chocolate. The special flavours produced when fresh milk, cocoa mass and sugar are cooked together in the first stages of the chocolate crumb making process give Cadbury Dairy Milk its unique taste. While advertising and packaging designs have evolved over the years, along with considerable technological advances in production, the Cadbury Dairy Milk recipe is still basically the same as it was in 1905. Cadbury Dairy Milk blocks comes in a range of sizes suitable for all ages and occasions - from a quick snack, a self-indulgent treat, something to share with family or friends or a gift. Cadbury Dairy Milk is sold with a similar design worldwide - the centerpiece of all packaging is the iconic "glass and a half " image showing the famous glass and a half of pure full cream milk flowing into a delicious chunk of Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate. Fun Facts The "glass and a half of full cream dairy milk in every 200gm" slogan with the picture of milk pouring into the chocolate block, is one of the all-time greats of advertising. Australians prefer creamier milk chocolate, with the Cadbury Dairy Milk brand being the market leader. Dairy Milk chocolate is the main ingredient of many other Cadbury chocolate favourites such as Freddo. The original Cadbury milk chocolate faded into obscurity in 1915. The largest moulded bar in the world was made by Cadbury Limited in October 1998 to celebrate the re-launch of Cadbury Dairy Milk. The giant 1.1 tonne block was nearly 9ft high and 4 ft wide. It would take an average person 120 years to eat! It takes the whole year's crop from one tree to make 450gms of Chocolate. Memorable Advertising
Historic label With its simple message of the goodness associated with the "glass and a half of full cream dairy milk", this successful advertising campaign began in 1928 and served Cadbury Dairy Milk admirably until the late 1980s. A change in advertising strategy in the 1990s saw a greater emphasis placed on taste in the bold "Chocolate is Cadbury" campaign. The message reinforced that no other chocolate compares with the taste of Cadbury, while successful elements of previous campaign such as the glass and a half were still included. The clever imagery of this television campaign played on the theme that chocolate means different things to different people at different times, but most importantly, Chocolate is Cadbury.
Chocolate Making
We make a variety of chocolates but the two main products are Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate and Cadbury Old Gold dark chocolate. The special taste and texture of Cadbury chocolate is based on long traditions of expertise in chocolate recipe and processing methods unique to Cadbury. Techniques are improving all the time and new technology enables the process to be highly tuned to consumer's evolving tastes and preferences. Chocolate production is a highly sophisticated, computer controlled process, with much of the new specialist machinery being produced to our own design and specification. The Chocolate Making Process
Ingredients Production starts at the Singapore cocoa factory where the top quality cocoa beans are processed to produce the cocoa mass - which contains 53% cocoa and cocoa butter - the basis for all chocolate products. When chocolate is made, the 'mass' goes straight to our factories in Victoria or Tasmania. Fresh full cream milk is collected and condensed and transported to the factories. Sugar is added to the condensed milk with some of the cocoa mass, making a rich creamy chocolate liquid, which is then evaporated to make milk chocolate crumb. As these ingredients are cooked together, the special rich creamy taste of Cadbury chocolate is produced. Each year, 22,000 tonnes of crumb is produced at Claremont to be made into chocolate. On arrival at the chocolate factory, the crumb is passed through a pin mill and mixed with cocoa liquor and cocoa butter, as well as special chocolate flavouring. The amount of emulsifiers added depends on the consistency of the chocolate required. Thick chocolate is needed for moulded blocks, while a thinner consistency is used for assortments and covering bars. Both milk and dark chocolate undergo the same final special production stages - refining, conching and tempering - which produce the famous smoothness, gloss and snap of Cadbury chocolate. Conching involves mixing and beating the semi-liquid mixture to develop the flavour, removing unwanted volatile flavours and reducing the viscosity and particle size.
Tempering is the final crucial and complex stage which involves mixing and cooling the liquid chocolate under carefully controlled conditions to ensure that the fat in the chocolate crystallises in its most stable form. Highly sophisticated machinery has been developed for this process, which is one of the skills of the chocolatier. Tempered chocolate is used in a number of ways to produce our famous brands. Blocks of solid chocolate, including bars with added ingredients such as nuts and raisins, are known in the industry as 'moulded' products. Tempered chocolate is poured into bar-shaped moulds, shaken and cooled, then the moulded blocks continue to high speed wrapping plants. One of our most recently-commissioned plants will potentially produce 700 blocks per minute. Other Chocolate Processes In products such as Crunchie bar, Cherry Ripe bar, or TimeOut bar, the chocolate covers a centre filling. In a process called 'enrobing,' the centres pass on a continuous belt beneath a curtain of liquid chocolate. Assortments such as the boxed selection Cadbury Milk Tray or the twist-wrapped Cadbury Roses are made either by the enrobing process or "shelling," where liquid chocolate is deposited into a mould to form a shell. The centre filling is deposited in the shell, which is then sealed. Another process involves "panning," where pieces of biscuit, raisin or caramel are coated with chocolate in a revolving drum. Shell Easter eggs are made by the shell moulding process while Cadbury has a unique process for products like Cadbury Creme Eggs. Chocolate Tastes Around the World Chocolate is made to a recipe, and is made with distinctive tastes and traditions in different countries of the world. Dark chocolate is the most popular chocolate in Europe, where chocolate has a higher level of cocoa solids, giving it a much stronger flavour. Milk chocolate is the preferred choice in Australia, while Americans favour dark chocolate with the smoky flavours of South American beans. Another important difference between the recipe traditions of European and UK chocolates is the kind of milk used. European manufacturers use dried milk powder, often mixed with whey powder. However we use fresh milk - we believe that the very best milk chocolate is made with fresh milk.
The Story of Easter and Easter Eggs Easter Egg Tradition Eggs have been associated with the Christian festival of Easter, which celebrates the death and resurrection of Christ, since the early days of the church. However, Christian customs connected with Easter eggs are to some extent adaptations of ancient pagan practices related to spring rites. The egg has long been a symbol of 'fertility', 'rebirth' and 'the beginning'. In Egyptian mythology, the phoenix burns its nest to be reborn later from the egg that is left; Hindu scriptures relate that the world developed from an egg. With the rise of Christianity in Western Europe, the church adapted many pagan customs and the egg, as a symbol of new life, came to represent the Resurrection. Some Christians regarded the egg as a symbol for the stone being rolled from the sepulchre. Eggs as an Easter Gift The earliest Easter eggs were hen or duck eggs decorated at home in bright colours with vegetable dye and charcoal. Orthodox Christians and many cultures continue to dye Easter eggs, often decorating them with flowers. The 17th and 18th centuries saw the manufacture of egg-shaped toys, which were given to children at Easter. The Victorians had cardboard, 'plush' and satin covered eggs filled with Easter gifts and chocolates. The ultimate egg-shaped Easter gifts must have been the fabulous jewelled creations of Carl Faberg made during the 19th century for the Russian Czar and Czarina, now precious museum pieces. Chocolate Easter eggs were first made in Europe in the early 19th century, with France and Germany taking the lead in this new artistic confectionery. Some early eggs were solid, as the technique for mass-producing moulded chocolate had not been devised. The production of the first hollow chocolate eggs must have been painstaking, as the moulds were lined with paste chocolate one at a time. Cadbury Easter Eggs John Cadbury made his first 'French eating Chocolate' in 1842 but it was not until 1875 that the first Cadbury Easter Eggs were made. Progress in the chocolate Easter egg market was slow until a method was found for making the chocolate flow into the moulds. The modern chocolate Easter egg owes its progression to the two greatest developments in the history of chocolate - the Dutch invention of a press for separating cocoa butter from the cocoa bean in 1828 and the introduction of a pure cocoa by Cadbury Brothers in 1866. The Cadbury process made large quantities of cocoa butter available and this was the secret of making moulded chocolate or indeed, any fine eating chocolate. The earliest Cadbury chocolate eggs were made of 'dark' chocolate with a plain smooth surface and were filled with sugared almonds. The earliest 'decorated eggs' were plain shells enhanced by chocolate piping and marzipan flowers. Decorative skill and variety bloomed and by 1893 there were 19 different lines on the Cadbury Brothers Easter list in the UK. Richard Cadbury's artistic skill undoubtedly played an important part in the development of the Easter range. Many of his designs were based on French, Dutch and German originals adapted to Victorian tastes. Germany came up with the 'crocodile' finish, which by breaking up the smooth surface, disguised minor imperfections. This was the forerunner to the many distinctive finishes now available. The launch in 1905 of Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate made a tremendous contribution to the Easter egg market. The popularity of this new chocolate vastly increased sales of Easter eggs and establish them as seasonal best sellers. Today the Easter egg market is predominantly milk chocolate. Today's Market The Easter egg market is one of the most exciting confectionary markets, with new ranges and presentations attracting more consumers every year. The Easter Egg gift market reaches all ages of the population - young and old alike. Shell Eggs Making up a large portion of the market are Shell Eggs. These hollow eggs filled with chocolate assortments, including Cadbury Roses and Milk Trayboxed chocolates or the popular chocolate bars: Time Out, Twirl, Flake, Picnic, Crunchie or Cherry Ripe. Creme-Filled Eggs Creme-filled eggs, dominated by the famous Cadbury Creme Egg, also make up a significant portion of the Easter Egg market. They closely resemble the original article - the chocolate shell, with its fondant cream white and yellow cream yolk. Over the years, variations on filled eggs in Australia have included Hazlenut Truffle, Dairy Milk Truffle, Marble and Caramello. The Land of Cadbury The Land of Cadbury was introduced in Australia in 1997 as the umbrella campaign for Easter. The Land of Cadbury is developed around the central tale of the Great Bunny. The Land of Cadbury incorporates some beautifully packaged items that each play a role in the Tale of the Great Bunny. The Land of Cadbury has been well-received and the figurehead Great Bunny is a favourite character. Production Techniques Principles of chocolate Easter Egg manufacturing haven't changed greatly over the years. The earliest Easter eggs were made of dark chocolate and were 'whole shells' rather than the half shells manufactured today. Cadbury has always been at the forefront of machine design and commissioning and produces Easter Eggs using highly efficient computer-operated technology. Liquid chocolate is deposited in moulds that are then rotated to achieve a uniform thickness. The eggs are then cooled and the two halves of the egg joined to produce the perfect Cadbury Easter Egg. To cater for demand, Easter Eggs are produced in Australia for eight months of the year.