The Fry family began selling chocolate in 1759. By the 1820s they were using up to 39% of the nation's imports of cocoa beans.

There is no evidence that they owned slaves or traded in enslaved people. But there can be little doubt that chocolate made by the Fry Chocolate Business until 1833 was produced from ingredients cultivated by enslaved people, mainly from or living in the Caribbean.

After abolition in 1833 the Fry family sourced cocoa beans from the Portuguese island of Sao Tome where slavery existed until 1875.

Altogether their business used goods produced by slaves for almost 150 years.