{"id":736049,"date":"2026-08-12T23:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T23:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/736049\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T23:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T23:10:08","slug":"first-100-british-chocolate-bar-since-1932-made-in-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/736049\/","title":{"rendered":"First 100% British chocolate bar since 1932 made in Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A chocolate bar has been made using entirely British ingredients for the first time in nearly a century, with cocoa from not Brazil or Bali, but Berkshire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Created at the University of Reading, it was named the Reading 100 Chocolate Bar to mark the university&#8217;s 100th anniversary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is the first of its kind since 1932, when Rowntree&#8217;s gifted a six-year-old Princess Elizabeth the only other bar of UK-grown chocolate ever made.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Food security master&#8217;s student Maha Khan created the chocolate bar by harvesting, fermenting and processing the Reading-grown cocoa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While the UK&#8217;s chocolate market is worth \u00a310.4bn, it is entirely reliant on imported cocoa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Maha told the Today programme she made the bar to highlight the challenges facing the cocoa growing industry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said: &#8220;It is incredible that we can make 100% British chocolate \u2013 but in the context of climate change, pests and diseases, there are estimates that 30 to 40% is lost.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;And we&#8217;ve seen with these heatwaves, climate change, these problems and challenges are only going to get exacerbated.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A chocolate bar has been made using entirely British ingredients for the first time in nearly a century,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-736049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}