Cadbury World is located about 4 miles from Birmingham in an area
called Bourneville that the Cadbury family actually built up itself for
employees. The idea was to create a "society" around the factory so
that workers and owners alike would benefit from the business.
While I could argue that the set-up they created undermined the employee's
incentive/ability to get onto the property ladder for himself, there is no
doubt at all that the original Cadbury company was way ahead of its time when
trying to balance its profit motive with the social welfare of those workers
who made that profit possible.
This was most certainly partially motivated by the deep religious beliefs of
the Cadbury family, and I found learning about how England's most famous chocolate
company came into being very interesting indeed.
Apparently, Quakers are not allowed to drink alcohol...but there isn't a
problem with tea, coffee, or chocolate. As the price of cocoa dropped, Mr.
Cadbury provided "drinking chocolate" for his customers to replicate
the fashionable "chocolate houses" in London. Chocolate was still a bit of a
novelty, and the Cadbury family learned new ways to make it delicious. That was
over a hundred years ago. Today Cadbury is still an important employer in the United Kingdom.
What was the attraction like? Well, the tickets are a bit expensive. It
was about £30 for our family of 3, so I wanted something truly marvelous.
I'm not sure this experience would live up to that description, but we
did enjoy ourselves. You start out in a show presented by holograms that gives
you the basic this-is-how-we-made-our-chocolate-yummy breakdown on a kid
level.
Then you move onto the museum, which you push through at your own pace.
The first exhibit here explains how the Aztecs were the true founders of
chocolate. Then the Spanish brought the cocoa secret back to Europe.
At one point you end up in a room that has a shaking bench, steam that comes up
from the floor, and a fast narrative explaining how cocoa beans turn into
chocolate.
There are some other cool little things to learn/see along the way, i.e., how
DO they get the creme into the center of chocolate eggs? But my engineer
husband found walking through the factory itself the most interesting.
There's also a little ride that takes you through a cocoa bean world.
When my son was younger, he would have really enjoyed this. As it was, I got to
hear a lot of snickering derision from where he sat in the backseat.
At 13, he liked looking at the Cadbury commercials "through the
decades" the most.
Bottom line? You get free chocolate as you make your way through the
factory, and that's fun. Some of the history is interesting. We went late in
the afternoon, which, I think, was a great move because it wasn't
crowded. Cheap bargains are found in the factory store.
I'm glad we went, but it is expensive for what we got.