CHICORY

In 1986 I found myself sitting next to Jack Buck, a farmer from Moulton Seas End tasked to “keep him entertained” for a few minutes whilst I awaited one of my managers to become available. The challenge in doing this was that I couldn’t help but notice the dew drop on the end of his nose and in my inexperience was unsure whether to point it out, offer a tissue as a slightly socially awkward 19 year old . Although I did not mix easily with people, especially those my own age, one thing I did enjoy and had learned as a coping mechanism was to be interested in people, ask them about themselves, and listen thus avoiding opening my own mouth. With any farmer, asking them about their farming and crops, especially in the Fens, is a good way to get on their right side and to learn in the process. In this case I was aware of the business name Jack Buck Growers and asked him, “Tell me Mr. Buck, what do you grow?”

Chicons of chicory halved

He was, I feel, rather kind to me and smiled and said, “Many things,” he paused, but at the moment I’m growing chicory.” He asked me if I knew what chicory was, I confessed that other than a coffee substitute I had no idea what it was, what it looked like, and how it was grown.

Mr. Buck then explained to me that he was one of the first people in the country to force grow chicory commercially in dark sheds that produced both salad leaves and a chicon, a tender off-shoot that could be cooked as a vegetable or used as an ingredient. However, key to making it edible was keeping it in the dark as the flavour became strong and bitter in daylight which was a characteristic that made it suitable as a coffee substitute.

Over the years I would get to know the family and business as I moved to work in Holbeach and started shooting in the area.

In 2025 the force-growing of chicory and its packing for supermarkets is still to be found in the region, albeit in the subsequent Company name of DGM Growers. Their website acknowledges the beginnings of this chicory growing enterprise by Jack Buck in 1984 as the first commercial growing of forced chicory. This claim is true, but needs qualification as I have found earlier commercial growing of chicory in dark sheds in Cornwall in 1961. The difference is that this was the first operation of forced chicory to be done at scale in the modern supermarket era with a consistent and regular supply throughout the year.

If we go back further we see forcing chicory as a useful vegetable with chicons growing at a weekly rate of harvesting for the post-WW1 allotment holder with the method described here in June 1920: “Those who have the means of forcing chicory into growth during winter and spring should sow seeds now for the purpose of obtaining roots which can be brought on in the dull season for the sake of the delicious top growth which is perhaps the best of all fresh winter vegetables. Very little warmth is necessary, and if the roots are placed in a box of soil in a cellar or other dark and moderately warm place they will soon start into growth and produce the delicious tops.”[1]

Chicory was grown throughout the fields and across  Eastern England from the East Riding of Yorkshire down to Suffolk for cattle feed and the processing of it into granules and powder to mix with coffee and tobacco. This meant this herb was cultivated in increasing quantities with fields of mauve-blue flowers and stems up to three feet in height. The root looked a bit like a parsnip when lifted, but with more runners, plus it was more fragile than parsnips requiring greater care in lifting.

The growth of chicory cultivation was due to the popularity of coffee, tariffs and international politics. It needs to be understood that coffee was originally a drink of educated men meeting in coffee shops of London and eventually other large cities from the 1650’s. It was a luxury drink of educated professionals meeting and discussing the sciences, philosophy and the law. Some of these morphed into private members clubs. It was Maurice Johnson, having trained as a lawyer in London, that sort to replicate the coffee shop environment of learned people exchanging ideas and knowledge that saw the formation of Spalding Gentlemen’s Society in 1710. The trade and growth of coffee was dominated by three colonial powers; the Ottoman Empire, the Portuguese, and the Dutch. I believe because of this product being grown outside the British Empire the business interests of the British East India Company  saw the marketing and development of tea as the predominant beverage in Britain over coffee. This saw coffee retain a higher class value that only started to change in the nineteenth century. In the early nineteenth century both coffee and chicory were imported products. Chicory was produced within the British Empire and therefore attracted lower tariffs than coffee, plus the control of coffee produced in Yemen by the Ottoman Empire helped maintain a higher price. Ironically we see a similar situation today as increasingly high value plantations are becoming Chinese owned, not least James Bond’s favourite coffee, Jamaican Blue Mountain.

As coffee filtered down to become more popular in English society it became increasingly adulterated by roasted and ground chicory root. Hence in 1832 we see the following lament:

“ADULTERATION OF COFFEE – Some trash called succory or chicory is imported from Holland, bought by the grocers at about 4d per lb, and used by them in very large quantities to adulterate the coffee they sell, with which they do so to a very great extent, that may be easily ascertained by reference to the bills of entry for the last three months, to see the quantity imported. It must be a serious injury  to the revenue; many grocers are putting one-third and some one-half in all the ground coffee they sell.”[2]

The difficulty was that by the early 1800’s coffee was transforming from a luxury commodity to a household essential. There was a political awakening that the working class poor needed something nice in a time that essential items like bread were expensive in relation to pay – a day’s work to buy a full loaf. To understand this reasoning in later times read George Orwell’s ‘Road to Wigan Pier’  where he explains that in poverty you need small luxuries such as chocolate. But, in the nineteenth century this was understood for different reasons. Revolution had been seen in France. Bread was unaffordable for many of the working poor, especially in Manchester where the Peterloo massacre killing 17 and wounding up to 700 civilians was a warning to Parliament and the King (or his regent the future George IV caretakering the throne for his father George III).

The “new-found” working class luxury of coffee was only affordable to the increasing numbers of consumers if it was adulterated with chicory. Chicory produced within the British Empire, had duty often charged where it was grown as a levy on the area planted charged by the Crown to the colonial producer. Chicory from outside the Empire, for example Dutch, or in processed form from Belgium was charged higher excise duty upon its importation. Coffee being largely produced outside the British Empire incurred a higher tariff. Chicory grown in Britain did have an excise duty at a reduced rate, and throughout the nineteenth century was to have ever increasing regulation.

The adulteration of coffee with chicory possibly meant a loss of excise revenue, but whether it be permitted or not increasingly became a matter of labelling. Two Acts of Parliament under George III “…..contained very stringent provisions with regard to the sale of coffee, and substances sold or substituted for coffee, the condition being that the substitutes be sold under their real names.”[3]  However, a subsequent Act of George IV in 1822 made it clear that the sale of chicory and coffee was permitted by dealers, but a penalty being imposed if they were sold as coffee. This stimulated the growth of chicory in Britain combined with its processing, initially getting maltsters to dry the roots.  The blue-mauve flowers of chicory spread across an increasing acreage of land in the Fens and Eastern England from the East Riding of Yorkshire down.

Coffee dealers continued to mix chicory into coffee, but prosecutions for this were prohibited unless ordered by the Commissioner Of Excise and Customs, which the Commission was prepared to do in August 1832 until the government issued a Treasury Minute, “Inform the Commissioners of Excise that my Lords are of the opinion that the sale of chicory powder unmixed should not be interfered with, but that sellers of coffee should be informed that they must abide the consequences if, after a notice of two months, they shall continue to sell coffee mixed with any other ingredient contrary to the law.”

This was the legal position stated, but it had little enforcement and labelling of product was frequently inadequate. As people commonly were used to chicory being added there was the added paradox that many began to prefer the mixture of chicory and, added to this, was a general consensus that the mixing of chicory was permitted. A niche, highly profitable, business of growing, drying  and producing chicory powder or granules developed. The processing of chicory tended to be on a relatively small scale with brewers and maltsters adapting their processes to accommodate the crop. An increase in fires caused by chicory roasting occurred. The price of chicory as a commodity also rose. People were making money out of the processed crop in its own right.

We see a series of flip-flopping as in 1840 the Commissioners of Excise sought to prosecute dealers mixing coffee with the government stepping in with the following Treasury Minute of 6th August 1840,"Write to the Commissioners of Excise that my Lords consider that the law was altered with the view of admitting the admixture of chicory with coffee. My Lords therefore, do not consider that any measures should be enforced to prevent the sale of coffee mixed with chicory, and are of the opinion that the prosecutions in question should be dropped. My Lords do not consider such admixture will be fraud on the revenue  so long as chicory pays the proper duty; and as between the seller and the consumer, my Lords desire that Government should interfere as little as possible.” This was re-enforced with a further Treasury minute of 25^th August 1840 that, “Ordered, that no objections made on part of the revenue to dealers in and sellers of coffee mixing chicory with coffee, or having the same so mixed on their premises.

Thus the Treasury had circumvented a law to prevent adulteration and provided an anomaly, or  exception for coffee being adulterated with chicory whereas other taxable substances such as tea, sugar, pepper and tobacco were subject to regular prosecutions for adulteration.  For example in January 1846 we see chicory used as an adulterant of tobacco in the prosecution of Thomas and Richard Gaton at Lincoln magistrates.

Many aspects were behind the creation of this anomaly of law, not least the self-interests of the land owners, farmers, processors and coffee traders:

-         Political arguments and attitudes towards Free Trade

-         A growing recognition of the lack of the country’s ability to be self-sufficient in food endangering commercial growth and, without imports, worse a state of hunger and revolution.

-         The financial interests of land owners, farmers and traders growing chicory and selling coffee

-         A perception that tea, purchased within the British Empire, was preferred to be consumed over coffee largely imported from other colonial Empires.

-         A recognition that chicory made coffee an affordable luxury that helped keep the working classes content

-         A belief amongst the privileged and educated that consulted in coffee bars that adulterated coffee was perfectly adequate for the working classes who had unrefined pallets and would not appreciate the pure product.

This last point is taken up by a comment about the growing of chicory in the Fens and the London traders having a more discerning taste in November 1847:

“Chicory is extensively grown in Holbeach Marsh and other parts of Lincolnshire and finds a ready market at Wisbech. Can it be on this account that parties who have resided in Cockney-land always reject with loathing the article sold as coffee in Wisbech? The question is asked in all simplicity.”[4]

The debate over adulterated coffee rolled on in a very British way. In 1851 the Chancellor of the Exchequer reported receiving a petition from 1076 London grocers to leave the permitted adulteration of coffee as is and a total of 3682 signatures from other towns in England. It was a belief that none out of ten people knew they were buying adulterated coffee. Indeed consumers had become used to the taste of chicory mixed with coffee and this was an acceptable product to the working man as illustrated by this letter from a grocer in South Shields in 1851:

“I am situated in the heart of the northern coal district, where the use of coffee by the mining and manufacturing population is most extensive. I would say it is more used here by our most respectable families than by those of the same class in any other part of Great Britain. I find it almost invariably preferred when mixed with chicory; so much so, that in many cases persons buying ground coffee, which already contains a very respectable proportion of chicory, at the same time buy a packet of chicory to add to it, and thereby still more delight the palate. In one instance I remember where, in consequence of my stock of chicory being exhausted, I was necessitated to sell pure coffee for a single day, the complaining of it and returning of it lasted, more or less, for a week.”

A similar letter was received by the Chancellor from Liverpool:

“About twelve years ago we, for one week, sold our coffee without chicory, but we had it brought back from all quarters by our customers complaining it was bad.”

It is revealing that when this was discussed in Parliament it was mocked and laughed at with him responding that because the Members  preferred pure coffee it did not follow that others did not  and pointed out, “those who liked to pay the best price for their coffee had the means of procuring good coffee.”

By the time Parliament was debating this in 1851 it was a matter of understanding the winners and losers of a policy of adulteration. Winners were possibly the working class having access to a lower cost product. Farmers growing chicory in the UK gained. Coffee dealers claimed they lost out whereas retailers gained.  The Treasury was potentially cash neutral in the adulteration of coffee as duty was charged on chicory.

Chicory increased in value, making fraud viable as Mr. Hoff, a grocer in Holbeach discovered when he had been supplied fake chicory by a London dealer that he took to court in 1849:

“Hoff (Holbeach) vs. Boyd – This was an action against a Broker, to recover damages for a breach of contract. It appeared from the statement of Counsel, that the Plaintiff ordered the Defendant to purchase for him a large quantity of Chicory Nibs, the produce of a root resembling Dandelion, and which is extensively used in combination with coffee. The Defendant represented that he had effected the purchase at 30s. per cwt the supposed chicory was forwarded in due course, and the Plaintiff paid the Defendant at the rate agreed upon. It afterwards turned out that the article supplied was not chicory, but a spurious compound composed of dried parsnips and carrots (coloured) and that this stuff the Defendant had himself purchased at 28s per cwt., although it was sold to the Plaintiff at 30s. Samples of both the real and the spurious chicory were produced in court; and it was proved that the Plaintiff, by endeavoring to vend the spurious material, had lost the confidence of some of his customers, and that the article supplied by the defendant was utterly worthless.

The learned Baron remarked that it appeared a very scandalous fraud had been committed.

The Jury without hesitation, returned a verdict for the Plaintiff for 38l.4s.10d., which comprehended the sum paid to the Plaintiff, and a small expense to which he was put by carriage when his customers returned the spurious article.”

By 1863 Gladstone sought to equate the duty on chicory to that of coffee.

Camp coffee label

In 1876 we see the mixing of chicory and coffee industrialised in the creation of a product by R. Paterson & Son of Glasgow that is still common today – Camp chicory and coffee essence. This popular product had a distinctive label of a kilted Gordon Highlander being served coffee by a Sikh (now sitting down drinking coffee together since 2006). It is made with 25% chicory extract, 4% coffee and mixed with sugar water.

By the beginning of the twentieth century the Excise requirements of growing chicory was deemed a barrier to its being popular to grow by British farmers:

“..although there is no official interference with the growth of chicory, there practically is, since the only value of chicory is as a commercial crop, and a drying of the root is subject to excise regulations and a duty of 12s. 1d. per cwt. of the dried chicory delivered for consumption. A drier of chicory is required to make entry with the proper officer of excise, of his premises, kilns, and utensils and to provide to the satisfaction of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue (1) a warehouse for depositing chicory when dried, (2) proper accommodation on the premises for the officers, and (3) scales and weights and assistance to the officers in taking the necessary accounts therewith. The grower is also required to give notice to the officer of the times respectively when he will begin to dry the chicory and remove it from the kiln to the warehouse. Dry chicory to be forthwith secured in the approved warehouse, and it may only be removed therefrom in the day-time, on a four hours’ notice. Apart from 12s. 1d.per cwt duty on dried chicory, these un-necessarily vexatious and expensive regulations do not encourage farmers to grow chicory, even when it might be done with considerable profit to themselves.”[5]

These conditions deemed vexatious in Stephen’s Book of the Farm meant that the subsequent processing of chicory lent itself to being done at a centralized location with the unprocessed crop supplied, possibly under contract, by surrounding farmers. The quantities grown in the peat soils of the Cambridgeshire Fens were plentiful enough to attract attempts to develop Chicory drying and processing. In 1904 Mr. Gordon Baker started a chicory business at Fenstanton  in Cambridgeshire using an old malt kiln for drying. The problem with establishing such a business is having  enough capital and getting enough farmers to grow chicory for you to warrant the processing of a viable volume. This is seen with much processing of agricultural products and was particularly seen in the development of and history of processing sugar beet in Britain. Mr. Baker spent £1850 purchasing the old kilns at Fenstanton and adapting them to the processing of chicory roots into dried granules or powder. His first season in 1904 using the old kilns before properly adapting them lost £300 due to decomposition of the roots. He borrowed for the loss and continued to adapt the kilns in 1906 getting 500 tons of chicory roots grown by local farmers. Mr. Baker supplied chicory to Liptons and other firms, but did not know exactly how much he produced, but as chicory root produces about 1 ton of product for 5 tons of roots it can be estimated at 100 tons in 1906. However, Mr. Baker was no businessman and had very few records and clearly did not cost his business. To make matters worse Mr. Baker acquired a 276 acre farm near Fenstanton planning to grow his own chicory on this despite the fact he had no experience and very little knowledge of farming. By 1908 Mr. Baker had gone bust. The bankruptcy proceedings reveal the rakish nature of Mr. Baker that did not help his enterprise:

“Debtor: It was a gamble. If it had been nice fine weather in November and December, he would have been in a better position than he was.

The Official Receiver: Have you ever gambled?

Debtor: I think life is a gamble!

The Official Receiver: Have you ever gambled?

Debtor: I think life is a gamble.

Official Receiver: Have you ever played at cards with Mr. Munns?

Debtor: I have never seen any cards.

Official Receiver: Have you ever played any games with Mr. Munns at all?

Debtor: Never

Official Receiver: This is very funny. Did you ever lose £9 to Mr. Munns?

Debtor: Never

Official Receiver: How much money have you lost through betting this last three years.

Perhaps 15s.

Official Receiver: No more? You went to a great many race meetings.

Debtor: But I have never gambled.

Official Receiver: How many times have you been to Ostend?

Debtor: Three times

Official Receiver: With Mr. Munns?

Debtor: Once

Official Receiver: How much money did you spend there?

Debtor: I cannot say off-hand. I did not go for pleasure. I went to see the Chicory crops at Chantry (laughter). Ostend is the nearest and cheapest place to stay at.

The Official Receiver: I have stayed at Ostend, and should not consider it the cheapest place to stay at.

Debtor: Well, you see I always stayed at villas, not at the Imperial (laughter). 

Debtor further said he had been to Germany also, but he went there about machinery. He could not say how much he had spent on himself.”

All this was after the debtor had admitted he held the accounts to his business “in his head.” [6]

Despite its initial mismanagement this factory in Fenstanton was possibly the first to be developed just for chicory in England and was bought out and continued to produce chicory for Camp coffee.

Camp coffee enjoyed an uplift in  demand and production. This helped stimulate chicory production with purpose built  chicory drying and milling factories built at both Ely and St Ives in 1930, but the largest and longest standing factory was built by Chivers on their estate at Sedge Fen, Lakenheath. The success of this site is because it was built close to Lakenheath Railway Station  and managed to attract sufficient local growers. It was built in 1935 by Messrs. Boon of Fordham (a distant relation to the author’s paternal grandmother).  A further aspect of its success was that Mr. De-Cock, a Belgian, already had long standing successful experience  in processing chicory and he brought over his own experienced employees from Belgium. They lived in converted railway coaches on the site, a common Fenland housing through to the 1960’s.  

By 1965 the Lakenheath site was the largest producer of chicory in Europe. However, this accolade was lost as the Middle East oil crisis of the 1970’s saw energy prices increase dramatically and production became unviable as other European sites that used more efficient re-circulating heating processes gained the lead. The Lakenheath site closed by 1983.

The importance of this high value crop to the economy of farmers in this corner of the Fens cannot be under-stated with over a thousand acres of chicory grown to service this factory. But, what should also be considered  is the small acreage grown by each farmer in 1970 about 250 growers grew about 2-5 acres each of chicory supplying Lakenheath. Thus the benefit was shared out.

We see an industry and crop that benefitted greatly from migrant expertise and then suffered decline and became unviable for English production. Such an aspect of energy costs destroying and industry and the loss to all those connected to it, in this case growers is something that has been repeated time and again throughout my lifetime (born 1967).

However, in the case of chicory, it has taken the supermarket era of enabling distribution and  sale of forced chicory by innovative modern farmers both in the Lincolnshire Fens and elsewhere (Driffield, Yorkshire) that has created a new niche chicory industry.

[1] Kilmarnock Herald and North Ayrshire Gazette 25^th June 1920

[2] Drakards Stamford News 3^rd February 1832

[3] Hansard Debate 5^th June 1851 vol 117 cc 510-33

[4] Stamford Mercury November 1847

[5] Stephens Book of the Farm

[6] Spalding Guardian 18^th April 1908