A Berkshire-made chocolate bar has a subtly remarkable quality. The cocoa was grown, harvested, fermented, and processed on a university campus a short drive from Reading town center, rather than being assembled in Berkshire from imported cocoa, as almost every British chocolate product has been made for the past century. In some respects, it’s a minor issue. There are six bars in the world. You are unable to purchase one. However, the backstory raises an issue that most people haven’t given much thot to: where precisely does Britain get its chocolate, and what would happen if that supply became unreliable?
In honor of the University of Reading’s centennial, the bar is known as the Reading 100. It was developed by Maha Khan, a food security master’s student who worked extensively with cocoa plants at the university’s International Cocoa Quarantine Center, which, somewhat surprisingly, manages about 97 percent of the world’s international movement of cocoa plants. Khan obtained the raw materials for her bar from the center’s collection of more than 300 cocoa varieties. It seems fitting that a location designed to safeguard cocoa diversity from disease and pests would also unintentionally become the source of Britain’s most unique chocolate in recorded history.
It was last accomplished in 1932. A six-year-old Princess Elizabeth was given a bar made from a cocoa plant that Rowntree’s, a York confectionery company, had grown in a glasshouse at its headquarters. It’s the type of historical anecdote that seems almost untrue, but it did occur. It took almost a century for anyone to accomplish it once more. That disparity alone demonstrates the extent to which Britain outsourced its reliance on cocoa to tropical growing regions in Southeast Asia, South America, and West Africa—regions that are currently under increasing strain from disease, unpredictable rainfall, and climate change.
When Khan discussed the project in public, she was straightforward about it. She pointed out that cocoa plants are sensitive to even minor variations in rainfall and temperature. According to estimates, between 30 and 40 percent of potential cocoa yields worldwide are already lost due to climate change. That number might increase. The UK’s £10.4 billion chocolate industry depends entirely on a supply chain, so the heatwaves that have become more frequent and severe in important growing regions are a structural threat rather than a passing inconvenience. None of these issues can be resolved by the Reading 100. However, it poses the question in a manner that a policy paper most likely wouldn’t.
If you had the chance to stroll through the International Cocoa Quarantine Center, you would come across something that doesn’t seem particularly dramatic at first: rows of well-kept cocoa plants, many of which come from areas where commercial cultivation has been practiced for many generations. However, when you realize how important the center is to the global movement of plant material, the scope of its significance becomes clearer. Khan was employed in that setting, and the bar she created reflects that. It is said to have a rich, complex flavor, which makes sense considering the cocoa’s diverse genetic heritage.
As this story develops, it seems that creating a profitable British chocolate industry was never the main goal. Any significant cocoa production in Berkshire would require resources and climate control that are currently unfeasible from an economic standpoint. It takes about six months for a single cocoa pod to mature. For a small yield, six bars is a substantial effort. Making the invisible visible seemed to be Khan and the university’s top priority. They wanted to give people a concrete, palpable reason to consider fragile supply chains and the smallholder farmers in Ghana or Côte d’Ivoire whose livelihoods support every foil-wrapped bar in every British newsagent.
The timing seems purposeful in the best way possible, and it’s difficult to ignore. Universities frequently host formal dinners, publications, and lectures to commemorate anniversaries. Reading selected a chocolate bar. A genuine one, complete with a wrapper; small in number but meaningful. It’s unclear if anyone other than journalists and food security researchers pays long-term attention. For a split second, however, a patch of Berkshire cocoa did what most scholarly arguments fail to do: it made the abstract seem palatable.
FAQs
1. What is the Reading 100 Chocolate Bar?
A fully British chocolate bar created at the University of Reading in 2026.
2. Who made the Reading 100 Chocolate Bar?
Food security master’s student Maha Khan developed it for the university’s centenary.
3. When was the last all-British chocolate bar made before this?
Rowntree’s produced one in 1932, gifted to six-year-old Princess Elizabeth.
4. Where was the cocoa grown?
At Reading’s International Cocoa Quarantine Centre in Berkshire, England.
5. How many Reading 100 bars have been produced?
Only six bars exist worldwide, with no commercial launch planned.
6. Why was this chocolate bar created?
To highlight climate change threats facing global cocoa supply chains.
