J.S. Fry and Sons and their spread of chocolate

 

the thesis of this blog is the following: The very first Chocolate company in the entire world was called J.S. Fry and Son who popularized chocolate consumption through big business.” The first few questions that readers of this blog should ask themselves in order to better understand the thesis of this blog is the following: How did J.S. Fry and Sons further popularize chocolate consumption? How did big business help achieve this? With regards to the production of cacao beans into what it evolved to today known as the delicious candy called chocolate and its relation to how it is created and given to people today through the world of business there is definitely much to be said. Of course, it is important to remember that no matter one’s belief of how the economy should be run, or what economic system one would support or be opposed to, one thing that is objectively true is that the majority of the world operates on a for the profits-based system, chocolate is no exception, the reason for this mention is to go into details of the very first company in history which produced chocolate bars. J.S. Fry and Sons was a British chocolate company that was founded in the year of 1761 by a man named Joseph Fry. To fully answer the question of this blog, one should remember that chocolate consumption went from being a food for very small mesoamerican civilizations to the food of the elites making it a luxury item, and finally, to the present day it is a very common desert-like food that almost everyone has access to, rich, poor, and everyone in between. To answer the question of this blog in simple terms before giving the full explanation behind the verdict, J.S. Fry and Sons did indeed popularize chocolate consumption across many different parts of the earth. One of the reasons as to why is due to their motives for profit, which follows the idea of supply and demand. In the book by the Scottish author Adam Smith called “The Wealth of Nations” Smith explains how businesses have it in their own interest to make their products as presentable to their consumers as possible, with the proper and appropriate amount of government intervention. This explanation makes light of the fact that when a company such as J.S. Fry and Sons has the desire to make profits, forcing them to make their product (and in this case the product is chocolate) as desirable for the consumers as possible, the more desirable it becomes, the more consumers there are. Even today many of us human beings will resort to popularizing products that we think are good for consumption, let’s say for example that an individual name Matthew really likes chocolate, and sweets, and I am not in a minority with regards to this, then a company like J.S. Fry and Sons is going to produce sweet tasting chocolate bars because they want my money. What this eventually leads to is it being more popularized, which is why this blog makes the argument that J.S. Fry and Sons popularized chocolate consumption a lot more, than it was previously. The second reason as to why J.S. Fry and Sons popularized chocolate consumption is because they created competition with other companies who wanted the same thing they wanted (more profits), this then leads to more people consuming chocolate because it not only leads to a slash in the price of chocolate but also more companies mass producing them. With J.S. Fry and Sons being the first chocolate-producing company, they created a chain reaction, which inevitably leads to it being more advertised, creating more people who have a soft spot for chocolate. One way of better understanding this blog is by asking yourselves this question: If J.S. Fry and Sons did not decide to produce chocolate, which would mean no one else competing with them in order to make more chocolate, which would create more advertisement, would chocolate be as popular as it is today? The answer to this question is a definite no, and the reason as to why is because the chocolate would’ve been held back with regards to a lot of people knowing how tasty and desirable it is since there would not be as much advertisement as there is today, thanks to J.S. Fry and Sons. To summarize this blog, J.S. Fry and Sons created a domino-like effect for the popularization of chocolate consumption in the world today, making chocolate evolve from being a food of the elites to the desert-like food of every of all economic classes. 

Bibliography

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1379708