Dissatisfied with the quality of cocoa products produced by all manufacturers, including their own, the brothers took a momentous step in 1866, which had a bearing on their future prosperity and changed the British cocoa business.
Until that time English cocoa had been heavily adulterated with starchy substances like potato flour or sago to mask the excess cocoa butter. The cocoa drink, as described by George Cadbury himself, was a 'comforting gruel'.
Following a visit to the Van Houten factory in Holland, they introduced a new process for pressing cocoa butter from cocoa beans to their Bridge Street factory. A much more palatable cocoa essence was produced - the forerunner of the cocoa we know today.
Cadbury's new cocoa essence was extensively advertised as "Absolutely Pure… Therefore Best" and trade and medical opinion endorsed the new pure product. It was the marketing of this cocoa essence that helped to turn the small business, salvaged by the supreme efforts of two brothers, into the vast worldwide company that Cadbury is today.
At that time there was concern in Parliament about the adulteration of food, and a bill passed in 1860 hadn't prevented the adulteration of cocoa. The new pure unadulterated Cadbury's cocoa essence was heralded as a major breakthrough and led to the passing of the Adulteration of Foods Acts in 1872 and 1875. Cadbury received a remarkable amount of free publicity during the discussions, and sales increased dramatically.
The introduction of cocoa essence wasn't the only innovation that improved the Cadbury Brothers' trade: the plentiful supply of cocoa butter remaining after the cocoa was pressed made it possible to produce a wide variety of new kinds of 'eating chocolate'.