Milk Tray
Boxes of chocolates had been produced at Cadbury since the 1860s. But they were expensive, sold in small quantities and would only have been bought for very special occasions.
Milk Tray was different – an assortment of chocolates that could be an every day sort of purchase. To start with, the chocolates were sold in 5 1/2 lb boxes, which would be put out in trays to sell to customers. One was Milk Tray and one was Plain Tray.
Then in 1916, Cadbury produced a half-pound box of chocolates, followed by a 1Ib box in 1924. By the mid 1930s it was outselling all its competitors.
Milk Tray of course became hugely famous for its advertising, with its James Bond-style hero who dives off cliffs, pilots helicopters through storms and speed boats over waterfalls ‘all because the lady loves Milk Tray’. Today over 8 million boxes are sold every year.
Flake
The ‘crumbliest flakiest chocolate’ was first developed in 1920. A Cadbury employee had noticed that when the excess from chocolate moulds was drained off, it fell off in a stream and created flakey, folded chocolate. And from that simple observation, a new product was born!
It started off as a Cadbury Dairy Milk product with a see-through wrapper. The yellow wrapper appeared in 1959 when the reference ‘Dairy Milk’ was also dropped. Sales of Flake quadrupled in the 1970s with the popularity of the TV advertising, showing a series of sensual Flake Girls enjoying their chocolate.
Crunchie
Crunchie was launched as a Fry’s product in 1929.
It was inspired by an Australian bar called the Violet Crumble, which first appeared in 1913. It’s a bar with literary credentials – well, sort of. It was mentioned in Enid Blyton’s book ‘National Velvet’ in 1935, as the Brown sisters’ candy of choice for the year.
It used to be smaller than it is now – the size was increased in 1982. Over a million bars are produced a day.