[1] Fry, alongside Cadbury and Rowntree's, was one of the big three British confectionery manufacturers throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries, and all three companies were founded by Quakers.

The division's Somerdale Factory near Bristol was closed after the 2010 takeover of Cadbury's by Kraft Foods Inc.[4][5] Fry’s Cocoa is still sold in Canada.

The back of the label states: “trademark of Cadbury UK Limited, authorized user: imported by Kraft Canada Inc.”[6]

In 1761, Fry and John Vaughan purchased a small shop from an apothecary, Walter Churchman, and with it the patent for a chocolate refining process.

At its eventual home in Greenbank, Bristol, Packer's Chocolate continued to provide local competition for Fry's until 2006, under various owners and brands, from Bonds through to Famous Names and Elizabeth Shaw.

[citation needed] In October 2007, Cadbury announced plans to close the Somerdale plant, the historic home of the Fry's Factory, by 2010 with the loss of some 500 jobs.

Labour MP for Wansdyke, Dan Norris, said, "News of the factory's closure is a hard and heavy blow, not just to the workforce, but to the Keynsham community as a whole".

[25] On the BBC television programme Being Human, an old Fry's Cocoa billboard hangs prominently on the side of the B&B where the main characters reside in Series 3–5.

[26] In April 2020, an original enamel advertising sign with the distinctive "five boys" trademark design was featured on BBC's Antiques Roadshow and was valued at £1,000-£1,500.

[27] The distinctive "five boys" design expressing "Desperation, Pacification, Expectation, Acclamation and Realisation "It's Fry's" references Queen Alexandra, indicating a production date before her death in 1925.

On a tour of the Fry's Bristol factory when in his eighties, Lindsay Poulton, the boy featured in the design, recalled that his father had induced him to cry, for the first photograph, "Desperation", by wrapping an ammonia-soaked cloth around his neck.