The seventies continued to see new products coming to Greenbank, in 1972 Cavenham purchased Shuttleworth's of London and transferred all their equipment from the manufacture of easter eggs to Greenbank. By the end of the decade the factory was also home to a brand which would come to dominate its future. Back in 1968 Cavenham had bought the remnants of Elizabeth Shaw Ltd after a major fire had destroyed their own factory in Camberly. Initially the production of the Elizabeth Shaw ranges had been transferred to Cavenham's Doncaster factory but unprecedented rises in the costs of chocolate manufacture would lead to a move to Greenbank. By 1974 the whole confectionary industry was struggling in the face of rising costs, the price of Cocoa beans had increased by over two hundred percent which resulted in a significant fall in the public's consumption of chocolate products especially the premium brands like "Famous Names" chocolate liqueurs. Traditionally a fall in chocolate consumption had been offset by an increase to the sale of cheaper sugar candy confectionary like the Goodies range, but at the same times as the price of cocoa was souring so was the UK price of sugar, its penny and two penny sweets were hardly clearing a profit. The company's response was to rationalise its production organisation, in 1977 Greenbank was selected as the site for all of the companies chocolate production and the three Elizabeth Shaw lines Mint Crisp, Mint Creams and After Dinner Mints were moved from the Doncaster factory which was closed.

Despite these efforts by the beginning of the 80's the factory was in trouble resulting in redundancies among its 750 strong workforce. In 1981 Goldsmith announced his intention to withdraw from the food market placing the factory's future in doubt. Even though the company's overall sales had dropped by nearly a quarter over the past ten years it was still selling £ 27 million of Famous Names chocolate liqueurs and Elizabeth Shaw chocolates each year. Four of the companies directors still saw enough potential to embark on a management buyout of Cavenham's confectionary division including the Greenbank factory. With the support of a number of Institutional investors they were able to raise the £8 million pounds to buy out the company and its brand names in July of 1981, the company emerged from the deal with a new company under the name of Famous Names Ltd.

Although the company's future was now secure it had been 15 years since the factory had received significant investment and it was in need of modernisation. The company was forced into a series of economies including further redundancies in order to fund capital investments in new machinery. Over the next four years £1.75 million was invested in new plant including robotic packing and semi-automatic chocolate production plant. Even though the new machinery was ensuring the factories future the workforce felt that the investment in new plant was not being matched by appropriate increases in their which led to a long series of industrial actions and 340 of remaining 440 workers at Greenbank out on strike. Despite the disruption caused by the strike Famous names had returned to profitability making a £12 million gross profit in 1983 the company's range was also well placed in the UK chocolate market, Famous Names held 44% of the chocolate liquers market and Elizabeth Shaw 50% of the chocolate crisp market.

The successful turnaround prompted another influential Bristol company Imperial Tobacco to express an interest in acquiring the company to diversify their own business. In response the directors of Famous Names who realised they would be unable to finance the next phase of their own expansion plans without a powerful partner, welcomed the approach. So an amicable take over was arranged, and Famous Names was sold to Imperial for £15.5 million during september of 1985. The following year Imperial Tobbaco became the target of a take over itself and after a long battle the it was itself purchased by the conglomerate Hanson. Hanson had pursued Imperial in order to access their tobacco business and were not interested in continuing its planned diversification. As a result Famous Names was transferred to the Imperial Foods division in preparation for selling the business off. Although Hanson had no long term plans to retain the business it did continue a program of capital investment to ensure the business remained viable and one major change it made resulted in a re branding of the company. The Famous Names brand was dropped in 1988 with the long lived line of chocolate liquers re branded as an Elizabeth Shaw product. Shortly after the entire company renamed to Elizabeth Shaw Ltd. By now the company was being prepared for sale and with the support of Hanson the company was the subject of a second management buyout a deal completed in March 1989. The company was sold to a group of six of its directors for £24.7 million.

The board of the new company realised that in order for the company to survive in the coming common european market a strong european partner would be required, One of the investors approached to finance the buy out was the Finnish Huhtamaki group through its dutch confectionary manufacturer Leaf. The relationship with Leaf saw the development of a common sales and distribution network in the UK to allow Leaf's products access to the UK market while Elizabeth Shaw could benift from the existing european distribution channels controlled by Leaf. The relationship between the two companies eventually developed beyond a simple partnership to a full merger when Leaf purchased the directors holdings in Elizabeth Shaw in January 1990. At the time the factory employed 250 permanent workers who were boosted with up to 300 seasonal staff at peak periods.

As a result of the change of ownership the company found itself with another new name, it became Leaf United Kingdom Ltd. The company decided to focus on the Elizabeth Shaw brand products and abandoned the Goodies brand in favor of Leaf's own imported penny sweets. Through its european contacts the company secured a new contract to produce chocolates for UK distribution on behalf of the Swiss company Lindt. By the end of the 1990's Leaf UK was making substantial losses which in part prompted Huhtamaki to transfer the Leaf Group to the dutch confectionary company CSM. The new owners planned to rationalise production at Greenbank, while in Leaf ownership the workforce had been reduced to 160 permanent employees but the new proposals called for a further reduction of 62 jobs. The product lines were also concentrated on Elizabeth Shaw's Chocolate Crisp lines, along with The Chocolate liquers and Crispets. However once these measures had been introduced CSM decided to concentrate its business on sugar confectionary and to sell off their chocolate lines along with the Greenbank Factory.

For the third time the Factory was part of a management buyout, It and the Elizabeth Shaw brands were sold for £ 6 Million in March of 2000 to four of the company directors, who named their new company Packbond Holdings Ltd. Although the companies Elizabeth Shaw products were still selling well and the had seen considerable success entering the own brand market producing chocolates for Marks and Spencers and Sainbury's. The costs of running the Greenbank factory were considered to be to high, The company had initially planned a move to a new modern purpose built factory but in January 2006 it announced the intention to close the factory and transfer production to eastern Europe. The last chocolates produced in green bank rolled off the production line in October 2006 ending 103 years of Bristol chocolate making.

I visited the factory nine months after it closed, not long after production had ceased an auction had been held to sell off the chocolate making machinery so most of the factory floors had been cleared by the time I visited. After making our way onto the site the first stop was block 1 the oldest part of the original factory buildings. Back in 1966 this part of the factory had been converted to house the staff facilities, and the first rooms we entered were the factory offices on the first floor. They had changed very little since the 1960's refurbishment the walls were still lined in chipboard wood paneling and carpet tiles, One of the doors was still marked with a typical 1960's plastic letters spelling out the "Personnel Department". One original feature had survived the modernisation, tucked away behind a frosted glass door was an ornate cast iron spiral staircase which lead up to the second floor. From the offices we found ourselves in the kitchens of the staff canteen most of the catering equipment had been removed except for a large industrial toaster which must have been here since the kitchen was installed in 66. A set of double doors took us to the main canteen area all the seating had been removed but the long service counter was still in place with the heating lamps collapsed over the hot plate, the specials board was blank that day so we had to make do with the sandwiches we had brought.

The door leading out of the canteen brought us to a stairwell between blocks 1 and 2 which we followed up to the second floor, Up here we found the staff's locker room. Originally it had been one of the factories early production floors but the long open plan room had been filled with long rows of colorful lockers, here and there a white overall still hung within a locker. There wasn't much else to be seen so we moved up into the third floor attic space, where we came across stacks of unused promotional material from the 90's including the wrappers for lo Cal chocolate bars and Fizzy Chewits another famous names brand that was produced in their Southport factory. In between the separate blocks of the building there were open spaces covered by a glass roof and chris crossed by iron walkways on each level, We used one of these to cross over to Block 2.

Block 2 had been converted to the engineering department. Although most of the former factory floors were now empty, a small glazed tile stairway tucked away at the back of the ground floor lead us up into the engineering stores. Still stacked up on the racks of shelving were spare parts, cogs, valves and gauges for the machinery which once filled the factory floors. Next to the engineering stores was a large workshop dominated by a industrial lathe which was labeled with an auction lot number it obviously failed to sell. Completing the engineering department was a office lined corridor. The first of these had a sign labeling it as the management dining room but inside we found the engineers rest room which was almost completely filled with a full size snooker table. The walls were lined by more lockers and hidden away inside one was a tongue in cheek award the "Cunt of the Day". Next door we found the drawing office where wooden filing cabinets housed the engineering drawings of the factories machines, Along one wall a huge drawing desk was still covered by the plans of a chocolate mixing machine.

Back on the first floor we found part of the the chocolate making plant a spiders web of pipes which pumped the liquid chocolate over to the production floors. Most of the chocolate making machinery had been sold off with the largest parts of the equipment left in block 3 next door. On our way over to block 3 through the bottom of a stair well at the back of the factory we found a pile of laundry bags, Inside were hundreds of uniforms embroidered with the last employee's names. With in block 3 we passed by tall liquid chocolate tanks on the ground floor and before making our way upwards we passed through a dark factory floor it had also been cleared of any equipment leaving the wooden supports exposed, each floor was held in place with beams made up of a series of wooden diamonds. We continued upwards until reaching the attic rooms which held the factories quality control labs there was very little left for us to find up here except for a large tank marked "Chocolate Waste Tank", but hidden away among the attic beams there was still a painted sign for the factories private fire brigade which must have been added back in the 1920's when the private fire brigade movement was at its peek.

It was then time for us to move over to the production floors in the blocks 4 and 5 which were now connected together. All of the iron walkways over to block 4 had been sealed off so we had to go back to the main stair well which lay between the two factory buildings. We crossed over on the Second floor and found ourselves on one of the packing lines. Once again most of the machinery had been sold leaving behind a few roller tables and a few of the smaller pieces of equipment. One of the interesting features of the floor were two air tight cabins one set out as a workers rest room complete with ash trays presumably to keep the smoke away from the products. Attached to one wall we found the quality control measures it seems the worst quality chocolates reaching the packing line could find themselves dumped in a bin destined to a pig pen as a animal food I didn't know pigs enjoyed chocolate liquers. On the second floor blocks 4 and 5 were linked to form a single production floor but the original floor levels in each block were different, block 5 was a few feet higher. So where the production line passed across to the packing area ramps and a small stairway had been installed Near one of these we came across the largest piece of machinery we had found so far a wrapper still threaded by a long sheet of clear plastic wrap.

Moving up the ramp on to the production floor there were a few more pieces of equipment, the control panel for the chocolate liquor line along with another wrapping machine. We had to head upwards to find more machinery, up on the third floor we came across the long Binder shell moulder installed in the 1960's it was still set up with the molds for easter egg production and a mixer set up to feed the line was choked up with solidified chocolate. After touring the remaining machinery we headed further up inside the building and found our selves in the attic of block 4. Up here was an old printing press which seamed to have been forgotten for decades, around it were scattered printed boxes for "Goodies Dr Who" bars last sold in the early 1980's. Up in the attic we came across a small door way which lead out on the the flat roof of the link constructed between block 4 and 5. From the roof we got a good view over Greenbank towards the city center, we stayed up on the roof for a little while and had lunch in the sun as i'm sure many of the workers from the stuffy print department up in the attic had done before us. Back inside there wasn't much left for us to see so we headed back down the main stairwell passing the packing departments on the first floor which were empty apart from some round shaped trolleys for holding trays of completed chocolates. On the ground floor we entered the stores and goods inward department still stacked full with pallets of refined sugar and unused promotional shot glasses for Vodka Shots one of the last lines to produced in the factory. After spending the best part of a day touring the factory floors we made our way to a nearby corner shop and treated ourselves to a bar of chocolate, of all the bars lined up on its shelves none were made in Bristol anymore.