University of Reading Student Makes Britain’s First Fully Homegrown Chocolate Bar in Nearly a Century
A food security student at the University of Reading has achieved a rare milestone by producing a chocolate bar made entirely from British-grown ingredients, in what is believed to be the first such achievement in almost a century.
Maha Khan, a master’s student studying food security, set out to answer a simple but ambitious question: could Britain produce chocolate entirely on its own soil, from cocoa pod to finished bar, without relying on imported ingredients?
Her answer was yes.
Khan sourced the cocoa from the university’s International Cocoa Quarantine Centre in Berkshire, a specialist facility that houses more than 300 cocoa varieties and plays an important role in safeguarding cocoa plants as they are moved internationally to protect them from pests and diseases.
She carried out the process herself, beginning with harvesting the cocoa pods. She opened the pods, removed the beans and fermented them before allowing them to dry naturally in the sun.
Once the beans had dried, Khan roasted and ground them into cocoa powder.
She then combined the cocoa with British-grown sugar and British milk, before transforming the mixture into a finished chocolate bar in the university’s Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences.
The result was named the Reading 100 Chocolate Bar, marking the university’s centenary.
A 94-year-old chocolate milestone
Khan’s achievement has a remarkable historical connection.
The last known attempt to produce chocolate entirely from British-grown ingredients dates back to 1932, when confectionery company Rowntree’s reportedly grew a single cocoa plant inside a glasshouse at its headquarters in York.
The company produced one chocolate bar from the cocoa plant and presented it to six-year-old Princess Elizabeth, who would later become Queen Elizabeth II.
She is believed to have been the only person to taste that historic bar.
Nearly a century later, Khan has revived the experiment — but this time completing the entire process herself, from harvesting the cocoa to producing the finished chocolate.
More than just chocolate
Khan’s project was not intended to suggest that Britain could replace the imported cocoa on which its enormous chocolate industry depends.
Instead, she wanted to highlight the fragility of the global cocoa supply chain and the importance of protecting cocoa diversity.
Britain’s chocolate industry is estimated to be worth £10.4 billion, yet cocoa used by the industry is imported from cocoa-growing regions overseas.
Cocoa production is particularly vulnerable to environmental changes because cocoa trees depend heavily on suitable temperatures and rainfall. Climate change is therefore creating growing concerns about the future stability of global cocoa supplies.
Khan’s work highlights the importance of maintaining a wide genetic diversity of cocoa plants, which could help researchers and farmers identify varieties capable of surviving changing environmental conditions.
Her chocolate bar therefore represents more than an unusual British food experiment.
It is also a reminder of the increasingly important relationship between food security, agricultural research, climate change and crop diversity.
From a cocoa pod grown in a Berkshire glasshouse to a finished chocolate bar produced by hand, Khan has recreated a remarkable piece of British food history — 94 years after Rowntree’s made its one-off chocolate bar for the future Queen Elizabeth II.
This time, however, the experiment has also opened a conversation about what the future of chocolate could look like in a changing climate.
University of Reading Student Makes Britain’s First Fully Homegrown Chocolate Bar in Nearly a Century