The Fry Family
Although many names from chocolate history are remembered today (Nestle, Hershey, etc.), very few know the name of the man who invented the candy bar. His name is Joseph Fry. Joseph Fry came from a long line of chocolatiers. His great grandfather, Joseph Fry M.D., began making chocolate in 1748 for his apothecary shop in Bristol, England. Joseph’s grandfather, Joseph Storres Fry, was the first to use a steam-powered engine to grind chocolate. This innovation, which occurred in 1795, modernized the chocolate manufacturing process and made it possible to mass-produce chocolate. Finally, in 1847, Joseph figured out a way to blend cocoa butter, cocoa powder, and sugar into a moldable paste. This paste was pressed into molds, and the chocolate bar was born. In 1919, J.S. Fry and Sons merged with Cadbury, and the Fry name began to sink into obscurity.
The Hershey Family
In 1893, a caramel maker named Milton Snavely Hershey attended the World’s Fair in Chicago. While there, he saw an exhibit that included chocolate making machinery, which he promptly purchased. In 1894, he added a chocolate making branch to his candy factory in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1900, Hershey sold the caramel company and began to concentrate solely on chocolate. He introduced the Hershey Milk Chocolate Bar that same year. The Hershey Company went on to invent Hershey Kisses, the Mr. Goodbar, the Krackel Bar, and many other popular kinds of chocolate.
The Mars Family
Another milestone in the history of the chocolate bar came with the invention of the Milky Way bar. In 1920, a man named Frank Mars started the Mar-O-Bar Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1923, the company began selling the Milky Way Bar, which was made to taste like malted milk. The Milky Way became the best selling chocolate bar in the United States. The Mars Company success continued with the Snickers bar, named after one of the Mars family horses, which was introduced in 1930. This was followed by the release of the Three Musketeers bar in 1932.
Forrest Mars Takes Over
Forrest Mars, Frank’s son and a ruthless entrepreneur, was unhappy with what he perceived as his father’s lack of initiative to expand the business. After spending time making chocolate bars in Europe, Forrest returned to the United States, and in 1941, he went into business with Bruce Murrie, the son of the president of the Hershey Company. That year, they began the manufacture of the wildly popular M&M’s. In 1964, after his father’s death, Forrest merged Mars and M&M, and it wasn’t long before his company was the most successful chocolate company in the world.