Scientists at the University of Reading have created the first chocolate bar made entirely from British ingredients in almost a century, with cocoa beans grown, harvested and processed in Berkshire.

The bar, produced to mark the university’s 100th anniversary, is only the second of its kind in history. For UK business travellers and the firms that host them, it is a timely reminder of how exposed the country’s £10.4bn chocolate market is to climate disruption overseas, with rising cocoa costs already filtering through to hotel minibars, conference catering and corporate gifts.

Until now, the only person ever to have eaten a chocolate bar made with 100 per cent British ingredients was the late Queen Elizabeth II. She was given one as a six-year-old in 1932 by the confectioner Rowntree’s, which created it from a glasshouse-grown cocoa plant at its headquarters in York.

From pod to bar without leaving Berkshire

Maha Khan, a master’s student at the university, harvested, fermented and processed the beans at Reading’s food department, using cocoa grown from plants in the institution’s own collection.

“It has been amazing to follow the entire chocolate-making process, from pod to bean to bar, without leaving Reading,” she said.

Khan described the finished chocolate as “delicious”, with a very rich flavour. “It’s incredible to taste the complexity of the flavour profiles as the cocoa is made from plants originating from over 300 varieties grown here. It was also really interesting to taste the raw cacao before it gets processed, the beans are coated in a white flesh that tastes like lychee and isn’t something many people in this country get to try.”

Why cocoa’s climate problem matters to UK firms

Britain makes some of the world’s best chocolate, yet the industry depends entirely on imported cocoa. High temperatures in growing regions have stunted plants in recent years, while extreme rainfall has drowned crops across Africa, pushing up prices for a commodity found in almost every hotel, airline lounge and meeting room. The government’s latest food security digest tracks the UK’s reliance on such imports.

The pressure on supply chains is one reason sustainability targets are intensifying among UK companies, and why producer nations are working to protect the crop, as seen at events such as the Grenada Chocolate Fest, which champions ethical cocoa production.

Reading holds more than 300 types of cocoa plant at its international cocoa quarantine centre, which handles 97 per cent of the world’s international movement of cocoa plants. The university hopes the bar will highlight the importance of preserving varieties that could withstand changing weather, pests and diseases.

“This British bar of chocolate highlights the precarious nature of our food supplies,” Khan said. “Cocoa plants are very sensitive to changes in temperature and rainfall, and climate change is already causing problems in countries that produce most of the world’s cocoa. Protecting different varieties is vital if farmers need hardier plants that can cope with a changing climate.

“I hope this shows people just how much work goes into the chocolate we enjoy, and how important it is to protect cocoa farmers and communities around the world.”

A bar fit for a future queen

Only six bars have been made so far, and with a single cocoa pod taking six months to grow, production will remain limited for now, although there are hopes to increase output depending on the availability of beans.

Khan hopes one bar will go to the Princess of Wales. “We haven’t decided yet who will get to eat the chocolate. As the last British chocolate made was eaten by the future queen in 1932, it would be fitting if the next bar was a gift to another future queen, the Princess of Wales, who, like the chocolate, was also born in Reading.”

Jamie Young

Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the ‘covid era’ and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine’s coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk

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Cox Communications customers began reporting problems with their internet, TV and phone service in the early hours of Thursday, according to outage-tracking service Downdetector, in what appeared to be a developing overnight disruption affecting the cable provider’s network.

Downdetector said user reports indicating problems with Cox began climbing at 12:42 a.m. Eastern time. The tracking service posted about the rising number of reports on its official account on the social platform X, asking affected users to describe how the outage was impacting them and tagging the post with the hashtag “CoxDown.”

As of Thursday morning, Cox had not issued a detailed public statement addressing the scope, cause or expected resolution timeline for the reported disruption. Separate outage-tracking service StatusGator showed Cox Communications as operational in data collected the previous afternoon, logging only a small number of user-submitted reports over the preceding 24-hour window, though that data predated the overnight spike in complaints flagged by Downdetector, leaving the true scope of Thursday’s early-morning disruption difficult to independently confirm using publicly available tracking tools alone.

Cox does not offer customers a direct way to report outages through its own website, according to consumer guidance published by CableTV.com. Instead, the company directs customers experiencing service problems to log into their Cox account or check the Cox mobile app, both of which are designed to display a red notification banner, potentially including an estimated repair time, if the company has already detected and confirmed a widespread outage in a customer’s area. Cox also operates a 24-hour customer support line and has said it responds to customer questions around the clock through its social media accounts. Customers can additionally text “UPDATE” to a designated short code to receive outage notifications for their specific area, according to the same guidance.

Cox Communications, a privately held company, serves millions of customers across regional markets throughout the United States, offering broadband internet, including gigabit-speed plans, alongside cable television and mobile service sold through Cox Mobile. The company has built a reputation over decades as one of the largest cable providers in the country, with particularly concentrated market presence in certain regions. In markets such as New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Cox operates as the dominant cable internet provider, a concentration that has, in past incidents, caused outages on the company’s network to overlap geographically with unrelated power outages affecting the local electrical grid.

Thursday’s reported disruption would not be the first time Cox’s network has experienced significant service problems. According to reporting cited by outage-tracking service NordVPN, Cox customers across several U.S. states have previously lost internet connectivity during major service failures, with some customers also reporting difficulty accessing TV streaming services during those incidents. Separate reports compiled from the online community DesignTAXI have documented earlier overnight spikes in Cox-related complaints, while discussions on Reddit have described previous instances of service disruptions beginning in the evening and persisting until the following morning, a pattern that bears some resemblance to the timing of Thursday’s reported issue. In at least one earlier case, a regional outage affecting Cox customers in Oklahoma reportedly began in the morning and was not resolved until the afternoon, illustrating that the duration of past Cox outages has varied considerably depending on the underlying cause.

Cox separately maintains a dedicated outage support line for its business customers, distinct from its residential support channels, reflecting the fact that outages affecting the company’s broader network infrastructure can disrupt both home internet service and business-tier connections simultaneously when the underlying cause originates within shared network infrastructure.

Given the overnight timing of Thursday’s reported disruption, the practical impact on affected customers may have been somewhat muted compared with outages occurring during peak daytime usage hours, though customers relying on always-on smart home devices, security systems or overnight work schedules could still have experienced meaningful disruption. Customers experiencing ongoing problems with their Cox service were, consistent with the company’s own guidance, generally advised to check their account or the Cox app first for any officially confirmed outage notifications before assuming an individual equipment issue was to blame, and to contact Cox’s 24-hour customer support line directly if the problem persisted.

This remains a developing situation, and additional details regarding the precise scope, underlying cause and expected resolution timeline of Thursday’s reported Cox outage were not immediately available. The company had not issued an official public acknowledgment of the disruption as of Thursday morning, leaving affected customers largely reliant on Downdetector and the company’s own account-based outage notifications to determine whether their individual service issues were part of a broader, network-wide problem.