Whatever Happened to Fry's Five Centres?

Many chocolate lovers who grew-up in the 20th century will have fond memories of a unique chocolate bar by Fry's called Five Centres, which was originally named 5 Centre. It featured a divine combination of five fondant flavours enveloped in dark chocolate. But whatever happened to it, and can you still buy it anywhere?

Firstly, I have another question for you. Can you remember the five flavours contained inside the dark chocolate bar? The flavours I remember were orange, raspberry, lime, strawberry, and pineapple, which featured in the 1970s, 80s and 90s version of the bar. However, these flavours were different in earlier bars. 

The original flavour combination in 5 Centre was orange, coffee, vanilla, lime, and raspberry. However, some online sources suggest that a blackcurrant flavour was used instead of vanilla at a certain time but we have been unable to find any evidence of this. 

Did you know that Fry's Chocolate Cream is the oldest mass-produced chocolate bar in the World? It launched in the 19th century in 1866! 

Fry's Five Centres was introduced in 1934, alongside the Peppermint Cream and Orange Cream - the latter two are still in production today. However, Fry's Five Centres was discontinued in 1992. The reason was mainly due to the cost of manufacturing the bar, which ate into the profit margins. 

The decision to stop making the delectable bar deeply upset consumers, and it was a firm favourite in many households across the UK. Fry's also stated that "falling sales" were also to blame for the decision.

The name was changed from its original name of 5 Centre to Fruit Medley for a short period in the 1960s before being changed to Five Centres.

Wrappers

There were six wrapper updates of Fry's Five Centres over the years, some with a different colour combination. The original 5 Centre (which launched with a price of 4d) came with a brown and white wrapper, Five Centres came in an all-brown wrapper, which was changed to blue and then red and white. The red and white version gained a more modern font in its final years of production.

This brown wrapper is from the 1970s.

Which Fry's fruit cream bars can you still buy today?

The Strawberry Cream bars have been available to buy in Limited Edition versions since around 2020, and both have been available at B&M stores in the UK at various times since then. 

Fry's Raspberry Cream has been quite widely available to buy during 2023 from online stores including Amazon.co.uk and Treasure Island Sweets.

The Orange Cream is more widely available, although still limited to selected stores.

Fry's rose-flavoured Turkish Delight bars are also available to buy at many UK supermarkets and online.

Fry's Coffee Cream is available to buy on Amazon's UK website.

The Pineapple, Lime, Blackcurrant and Vanilla flavours are not produced in separate bars, sadly. I am a huge fan of the coffee and chocolate combination, which seems to have been in decline since I was a lad in the 1970s, and you rarely see coffee chocolates today. I would also love to see a Pineapple Cream bar!

J.S. Fry & sons, Ltd. merged with Cadbury in 1919 and became officially defunct in 2010, after Cadbury was taken over by Kraft Foods. The Somerdale factory was also closed on 31 March 2011, with production moving to Warsaw in Poland. However, the Fry's name is still used in their original chocolate bars. 

We hope that you have enjoyed reading about whatever happened to Fry's Five Centres chocolate bars. 

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