Purpose - The present investigation aims to deal with the study of unsteady, heat-generating/ -absorbing and chemically reacting Casson fluid flow over a vertical cone and flat plate saturated with non-Darcy porous medium in the presence of cross-diffusion effects. Design/methodology/approach - A numerical computation for the governing equations has been performed using implicit finite difference method of Crank-Nicolson type. Findings - The influence of various physical parameters on velocity, temperature and concentration distributions is illustrated graphically, and the physical aspects are discussed in detail. Numerical results for average skin-friction, Nusselt number and Sherwood number are tabulated for the pertaining physical parameters. Results indicate that Soret and Dufour effects have notable influence on heat and mass transfer characteristics of the fluid when the temperature and concentration gradients are high. It is also observed that the consideration of heat generation/absorption plays a vital role in predicting the heat transfer characteristics of moving fluids. Research limitations/implications - Consider a two-dimensional, unsteady, free convective flow of an incompressible Casson fluid over a vertical cone and a flat plate saturated with non-Darcy porous medium. The fluid properties are assumed to be constant except for density variations in the buoyancy force term. The fluid flow is moderate and the permeability of the medium is assumed to be low, so that the Forchheimer flow model is applicable. Practical implications - The flow of Casson fluids (such as drilling muds, clay coatings and other suspensions, certain oils and greases, polymer melts and many emulsions), in the presence of heat transfer, is an important research area because of its relevance in the optimized processing of chocolate, toffee and other foodstuffs. Social implications - In the heat and mass transfer investigations, the Casson fluid model is found to be accurately applicable in many practical situations in the wings of polymer processing industries and biomechanics, etc.; some prominent examples are silicon suspensions, suspensions of bentonite in water and lithographic varnishes used for printing inks. Originality/value - The motivation of the present study is to bring out the effects of heat source/sink, Soret and Dufour effects on chemically reacting Casson fluid flow over a vertical cone and flat plate saturated with non-Darcy porous medium. The flow of Casson fluids (such as certain oils and greases, polymer melts and many emulsions) in the presence of heat transfer is an important research area because of its relevance in the optimized processing of chocolate, toffee and other foodstuffs. A numerical computation for the governing equations has been performed using implicit finite difference method of the Crank-Nicolson type. © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited.