Ask a certain generation of British sweet-eaters about Fry's Tiffin and you'll get a wistful look before an argument about whether it had raisins, cherries, or both. It's one of the more interesting stories in British chocolate: a bar from the country's oldest chocolate maker that vanished from the shelves and became a minor cult classic in its absence.
Fry's: older than Cadbury, older than almost anyone
J.S. Fry & Sons traces back to 1759, when Joseph Fry, a Quaker businessman, set up in Bristol. Fry's grew into one of the world's largest chocolate manufacturers through the 1800s and is generally credited with producing the world's first chocolate bar moulded for eating, rather than for drinking as chocolate had traditionally been prepared, in 1847.
What actually went into a Tiffin bar
Tiffin was never a standard countline bar. It packed dark chocolate with raisins, glace cherries and broken biscuit, giving it a dense, chewy, fruit-forward bite closer to a chocolate traybake than anything moulded and smooth. The name borrows from "tiffin", a British-Indian term for a light meal or snack, echoing the tiffin cake recipe that likely inspired the bar in the first place.
Swallowed by Cadbury
In 1919, Fry's merged with Cadbury to form the British Cocoa and Chocolate Company. The Fry's name survived within the wider Cadbury portfolio on individual lines such as Turkish Delight, Chocolate Cream and Peppermint Cream, but over the following decades many smaller Fry's products were quietly discontinued as the range was rationalised. Tiffin went in the early 2000s.
Bringing it back
Tiffin never fully disappeared from public memory, and Cadbury has periodically brought it back in limited runs to meet nostalgia-driven demand, though it has never returned as a permanent fixture alongside Fry's Turkish Delight. If it's dark, fruity chocolate you're after in the meantime, our chocolate collection is a good place to start.
Frequently asked questions
What is in a Fry's Tiffin bar?
Dark chocolate packed with raisins, glace cherries and broken biscuit.
Why was Fry's Tiffin discontinued?
Cadbury trimmed the wider Fry's range down to its best sellers, and Tiffin was dropped in the early 2000s.
Is Fry's Tiffin still made today?
It reappears on a limited basis rather than as a permanent line.