The University of Reading in Berkshire, United Kingdom, has produced chocolate bars entirely made with British-grown cocoa products. The 100 per cent British chocolate bar was made at the institution’s International Cocoa Quarantine Centre.

The British chocolate bar is the first of its kind since 1932, when Rowntrees, a British confectionery brand, gifted the then six-year-old Princess Elizabeth, later known as Queen Elizabeth II, the only other bar of UK-grown chocolate ever made.

Maha Khan, a food security master’s student at the University, created the chocolate bar using entirely British ingredients.

Ms Khan harvested, fermented and processed the Reading-grown cocoa, and made the exclusive chocolate in the University’s Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences.

The master’s degree student said the development was an amazing invention, despite the sensitive nature of cocoa plants to changing temperature and rainfall in the country.

“It has been amazing to follow the entire chocolate-making process, from pod to bean to bar, without leaving Reading. This British bar of chocolate highlights the precarious nature of our food supplies.

“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,” Ms Khan stated.

The late queen was the only person in history ever to eat a UK-grown chocolate.

The chocolate bar she ate nearly a century ago was made from a cocoa plant grown in a glasshouse at Rowntree’s headquarters in New York.