Bowling Alone, Snacking Alone: Why Craft Chocolate Is Meant to Be Shared

In January 1995, Robert Putnam published a hugely impactful article describing how Americans were increasingly “bowling alone”, socialising with friends less and trusting one another less. In late September 2026, Derek Thompson, with the polling group Data for Progress, repeated questions from the surveys Putnam used, in a follow up essay entitled “You Are No Longer Invited to Dinner”. It makes for grim reading. To quote one headline statistic: the proportion of Americans saying they host friends or family at home at least monthly fell by over 70% from 42% in 1975 to 12% in 2026.

There isn’t a readily accessible data set for eating and socialising (or bowling) in the UK. But what data there is suggests that Britain has its own challenges. In a YouGov survey of 12 Western countries (September 2024), the UK came last for eating dinner at a table: 45% in the UK against 47% in the US. The UK was also highest for eating on the sofa (42%). It’s also clear that screens are changing how people interact during meals – with around 2/3rds of people using their screens whilst eating (67% in the UK versus 66% for the UK) – see the blog, and below, for more of this eye-opening data).

Why does this matter – and what is the link to Craft Chocolate?

Part of the answer, as Putnam and Thompson suggest, is that socialising over food is key to social cohesion. Many anthropologists go even further, arguing that cooking and sharing food is the basis to civilisation and making us human. Sharing food is also fun. It helps build and maintain friendships and family relationships. And it is linked to greater happiness. See below for how Robin Dunbar’s study of 2,000 Britons “Breaking Bread”, gives another good reason to share stories about, and over, craft chocolate (and will reassure anyone who feels guilty about having a glass of wine with their evening meal).

Unfortunately Big Food is actively “leaning into” this trend of “bowling alone”. It’s pursuing the antithesis of Dunbar’s recommendation to eat, laugh and drink together. Instead Big Food has created, and relentlessly pushes, snack bars and snacking. Again Big Chocolate was there far earlier, pushing chocolate bars on station platforms for solitary, rushed breakfasts over 150 years ago (the first known example of a vending machine selling chocolate in the UK was at Mansion House Station in 1886).

On the other hand, savouring craft chocolate with friends and family creates experiences similar to those shown by Robin Dunbar as making people far, far happier. So given it’s less than 50 days to Christmas and less than three weeks to the advent calendar opening, why not use an Advent Calendar to share and savour together? And why not see how much fun a Craft Chocolate tasting can be too? Or finish a dinner party with one of our introductory boxes made to compare, savour and share.

US – bowling alone and the decline of entertaining friends

Putnam’s “bowling alone” article (and later book) suggested that the US was suffering from a decline not just in bowling clubs but from a far wider decline in social activities overall

• Between 1980 and 1993, while the total number of Americans bowling rose by 10%, participation in league bowling fell by 40%.
• Attendance at public meetings on town or school affairs had also nosedived, falling by over 40% between 1973 and 1993 (from 22% of people to 13%).
• Americans who had entertained friends at home about 15 times a year in the mid-1970s were, by the end of the 1990s, doing so barely half as often.

Putnam noted that at the same time there was a dramatic decline in Americans’ “trust” in one another and institutions, with the proportion saying that “most people can be trusted” falling from 58% in 1960 to 37% in 1993.

The journalist-podcaster-substack-pundit Derek Thompson has recently updated some of these statistics. And even though the statistics have dramatically rebounded post covid, they are still massively down from 50 years ago.

Monthly “hosting” and entertaining friends at home fell by over 70% between, and in total from over 40% to just over 10%. And the trend seems to be accelerating even after covid with “social-event time” halving between 2003 and 2024. Amongst those aged 18-34 the habit of attending and hosting events is even more dramatic – in 2023, the share of 25–34-year-olds eating every meal alone the previous day was more than 180% higher than two decades earlier, with a similar rise among 18–24-year-olds.

These findings also “triangulate” with other, anecdotal statistics on US consumption / food habits. For example, surveys suggest that 20% of all US meals really are now consumed in cars – knocking one in five meals out of any real opportunity to “socialise and break bread”. Similarly according to the 2025 World Happiness Report, 26% of Americans ate every meal alone on the previous day in 2023 – up 53% since 2003.

UK – more nuanced, but still discouraging

Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be as “clean” a data set covering the UK.

For the optimist, a few surveys suggest Britons are hosting more, not less. For example, the furniture retailer DFS carried out a survey where almost half of respondents said they host guests at least monthly, and most said they were as likely or more likely to do so than two years earlier.

But many other market research reports present far less encouraging statistics – to quote a few about the UK’s eating habits (from YouGov, ONS, The Big Lunch and Green King)

• In YouGov’s survey of 12 Western countries (September 2024), the UK came last for eating dinner at a table: 45% in the UK against 47% in the US – and the UK was also highest for eating on the sofa (42%)
• Two-thirds of Britons watch a screen while they eat dinner, including most of those eating with their families (about level with the US – 67% against 66%)
• One in five who live with others eat dinner in a different room or at a different time, and among 18–24-year-olds it is closer to two in five.

And to compare broader “societal” reports:

• The share of adults in England who volunteer at least monthly has fallen from 27% to 17% in a decade.
• The share who think many of their neighbours can be trusted has fallen from 48% to 40%.
• The number of pubs, that bastion of out of home socialising, is down by over 20% in 25 years, from 60,800 pubs in 2000 to less than 45,000 today.

Big food’s response – leaning in, compounding this trend

Big Food’s response has been to “lean into” this trend.

The snack bar is the clearest example. In 1975, Carnation launched a breakfast bar in the US as “an instant breakfast you can get your teeth into”. By the 1990s, cereal bars were being sold as food on the go. Today the bar covers every hour of the day: breakfast on the commute, lunch at the desk, the afternoon slump, the late-night pick-me-up. And they are now being packed full of protein to appeal to the GLP1 weight loss consumers.

Big Chocolate tracks this closely. Mondelēz, which owns Cadbury, Milka and Toblerone, publishes an annual State of Snacking report. Its 2024 edition found that people now snack almost as often as they eat main meals. 62% said they would rather eat many small meals than a few large ones. Among Gen Z and Millennials, it was 71%.

Arguably Big Chocolate pioneered this idea of snacking and solitary scoffing on the go well over 100 years ago. The first UK vending machine selling chocolate bars on a railway station was at Mansion House Tube in 1886 for commuters to enjoy on the way to (and from) work. And by 1893, the German maker Stollwerck had some 15,000 chocolate vending machines in public places for immediate, on the go, chocolate bar purchase (and consumption).

Advertising folks have also clocked this opportunity. For example Toblerone’s 2025 campaign, “Chocolate Like Nobody’s Watching”, shows people eating it on a bus, at work and in a hair salon. Their cheeks are stuffed and their faces distorted by the triangular chunks, all in slow motion to The Blue Danube. It’s portrayed as a personal treat, fine to indulge in public. Indeed part of the pleasure is doing it in public, among strangers, without caring who is watching – it almost adds an edge to the enjoyment.

Somehow Big Chocolate has managed to turn the loneliness of a crowd into a treat?

The lessons of history (and anthropologists) .. sharing food as the basis of community

Anthropologists and historians have long argued that the shared meal is older than, and indeed could even be, the start of civilization. For example, in Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (2009), Richard Wrangham argues that cooking reshaped our ancestors’ bodies and brains. Cooked food was easier to digest and freed up energy. Cooking also brought people together around the hearth to prepare, and share, and then eat their meals. Similarly the historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto makes cooking the first of the eight revolutions in his history of food, Near a Thousand Tables. “Culture begins when the raw gets cooked… (t)he campfire becomes a place of communion when people eat around it.”

… and building friendships and fun?

Robin Dunbar, the Oxford psychologist best known for “Dunbar’s number” (the idea that we can sustain only about 150 stable relationships and was, ironically, statistically demonstrated by Facebook), in 2017 researched whether, and how, eating with others provides both social and individual benefits”. And he concluded “I show that those who eat socially more often feel happier and more satisfied with life, are more trusting of others, more engaged with their local communities, and have more friends they can depend on for support”.

The paper, “Breaking Bread: the functions of social eating”, is less than 15 pages long and is well worth a read (especially if you’re looking for an excuse to enjoy a glass of wine…!)

As well as highlighting the importance of the evening meal, Dunbar used “path analysis” to suggest what makes a socially rewarding meal are four key factors:

1. The number of diners (unfortunately, he doesn’t recommend an optimum number here)
2. Laughter (note his wry comment that “… the frequency of jokes was not of itself important … it seems to be the laughter itself, what it is triggered by, that creates the sense of bonding”
3. Reminiscences (frustratingly what sort of “reminiscence”, like what sort jokes, isn’t detailed)
4. Alcohol (again frustratingly, what sort of alcohol isn’t detailed).

Intriguingly, Dunbar included chocolate in his analysis to see if what was eaten would make a difference. It didn’t (even amongst those eating it). Dunbar argues that it’s not the food (or chocolate) that is critical – rather it’s the sharing, the talking, the time taken, the attention paid and the laughter that matter.

Why craft chocolate

I hope that Dunbar would appreciate, and “lean into”, savouring, sharing and chatting about Craft Chocolate at the end of a meal (especially dinner) – and if anyone knows him, please do forward this to him.

Craft Chocolate can of course be savoured on your own, at your desk at work, or wherever. But as the enthusiasm, and delight, of – for example – London Craft Chocolate fair, or our tastings in Farringdon, prove sharing, chatting, savouring and laughing with others is even more FUN!. Despite talking non stop for 8+ hours, and being largely on their feet, Craft Chocolate Makers love nothing better than sharing their stories and having people tasting their bars. And as James’ tour around the UK shows, people who come to a tasting bond and have fun – here is a bona fide quote:

I went along to the Cocoa Runners craft chocolate tasting in Bath tonight and loved every minute. James was a brilliant host, knowledgeable, warm and genuinely funny, so it never felt like a lecture. I laughed a lot, ate a LOT of chocolate, and came away with a whole new appreciation for the craft behind a good bar.

Finally, a suggestion

And now that we are almost at Advent Calendar time, why not invest in a Craft Chocolate calendar from Marou or Zotter to share with friends, parents, siblings – or even colleagues? They are – rightly – more expensive than your supermarket, mass market £X.99 calendars. And it’s still great to gift, or indulge personally here, as a “personal treat”. But there is even more value to be had by sharing a Craft Chocolate Calendar .. and share the fun.

Sources

Hosting and social life

Derek Thompson, “You Are No Longer Invited to Dinner”, September 2026.
Political.org, “Share of Americans Hosting Guests at Home Has Fallen Sharply Since 1995, New Survey Analysis Finds”, October 2026

UK and international eating/snacking habits

YouGov, “Britons are as likely to eat dinner on the sofa as they are at a dining table”, September 2024.
YouGov, “Far more Britons eat dinner on the sofa than in other Western countries”, September 2024.
IKEA, “New global IKEA study finds nearly 1 in 5 people eat dinner on the sofa”, February 2026.
NPR/WNYC: Party of 1, with the Hartman Group’s 46% eaten alone (2015)
FoodNavigator-USA: Half of eating occasions now snacks (2014)
US Surgeon General, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community,

Research on eating together

R. I. M. Dunbar, “Breaking Bread: the Functions of Social Eating”, Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 3, 198–211 (2017).
Dunbar (2017), full PDF, including all figures and statistical tables.
World Happiness Report 2025, chapter 3, “Sharing meals with others: How sharing meals supports happiness and social connections”.
Jacob Sweet, “Is dining with others a sign of happiness?”, Harvard Gazette, April 2025.
Sandra Manninen et al., “Social Laughter Triggers Endogenous Opioid Release in Humans”, Journal of Neuroscience, 37(25), 6125–6131 (2017).
Eden Project, The Big Lunch
Wikipedia, “DDB Needham Life Style Surveys” — background to Putnam and Thompson