The Process
Photographs of the various stages in the process used to mix the milk, sugar and cocoa
Roy Preece
The photographs shown here illustrate the process used at the Cadbury's factory, Frampton on Severn. There are three main ingredients used in the process of making the raw chocolate product at this factory-milk, cocoa beans or mass and sugar At the time these photgraphs were taken the milk came from local farms in churns which weighed over 50kg when full. The cocoa mass came by boat from Bournville in 100 kilo sacks and the sugar came from Tate and Lyle, also in 100kg sacks so you had to be fit and strong to work at Cadburys. The boat from Bournville took back the finished chocolate crumb in 50kg sacks. In later years the raw materials came in by road tanker and the finished product was taken to Bourville by the same method
Did you work at the plant, would you like to add some detail for us?
A view of the factory showing milk lorries delivering milk in churns from local farms
Roy Preece
This picture show the churns inside the factory. Samples for quality were tested in the laboratory. The man on the left is Bert Wright from Arlingham who played bowls at Cadburys Bowls Club and was a well known local bell-ringer
Roy Preece
The milk was stored in these large tanks
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The milk was mixed with sugar (460kg of sugar per tonne of milk) and heated in these evaporators for two hours
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From the evaporator the milk was transfered along the horizontal pipe into these milk pans
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Another view of the milk pans- note the vertical pipe up which the milk/sugar mixture was sucked into the copper kettles (see next photo)
Roy Preece
The milk/sugar mixture was sucked up from the mik pans into these copper kettles and boiled for about 2 hours at 120C
Roy Preece
Another view of the copper kettles
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Copper kettles
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Although the milk/sugar mixture had been cooked for several hours it still contained crystals of sugar so it was passed through this machine to grind them up. The machine was nicknamed "the Sputnik" as it was installed at the same time as the Russian space programme in the late 1950's, early 1960's.
Roy Preece
The chocolate mass had been milled elsewhere and it was mixed with the milk/sugar mixture in these mixers. The milk came down through the hole in the ceiling. There were ten of these mixers and the processs took about an hour
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The mixture was then poured into these chocolate trays and allowed to cool for about an hour and a half
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Another view of the chocolate trays
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The trays were then wheeled into these ovens , 85 trays per load, and baked for 3 to 4 hours
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Another view of the chocolate ovens
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When the trays came out of the oven the chocolate was in a hard solid block. When it had cooled it was tipped out by hand into this crusher and milled up into small pieces before being conveyed to the bagging plant
Roy Preece
The chocolate was bagged up into 50kg sacks and taken to Bournville by canal boat where it was used to make sweets etc. In later years it was stored in large hoppers and taken by bulk road tanker
Roy Preece