Sunday 5 December 2010

Cadbury eaten up by Kraft

Dairy Milk Crunchie and Twirl are to be handed over on a plate to the giant Kraft holding company in Switzerland, thus reducing their £125 tax bill by half. The iconic Crunchie and the Curly Wurly will be made in Poland.
After a huge public outcry in 2009 Kraft increased its offer for Cadburys from £10.5 million to £11 million, shareholders accepted the offer and Cadburys was effectively finished. Kraft closed the Cadburys Somerdale factory near Bristol with a loss of 400 jobs only weeks after it had stated it would not do this. Oh how the mighty have fallen!
The US company's chief executive Irene Rosenfeld has been reluctant to show her face in the UK, quite correctly surmising she would not be the flavour of the month! She sent instead junior members of staff to face the music. Incidentally she was paid a colossal £17.3 million last year. With Kraft's reputation in tatters Nick Bunker now president for UK and Ireland has been put on a charm offensive trying to restore the American food giant's damaged reputation. "The Cadbury brand will continue to thrive", he says, but as he worked for another British chocolate manufacturer Terrys of York when it was subsumed by Kraft in 1998, and the factory was closed in 2006, production moved to Poland, there is fat chance of that! He is based in Cheltenham, and was a car dealer in the Middle East before he rejoined Kraft in 2000. Well wouldn't you know?!
Kraft products can be easily identified:
Dairylea cheese, Philadelphia cream cheese, Maxwell House coffee, Kenco Coffee, Terry's chocolate, Ritz crackers, Toblerone chocolate, Capri Sun Juice drinks, Carte Noir coffee, Cote d'or chocolate, and a whole lot more brands around the world. So, as The Daily Mail so rightly says, "If you won't pay your taxes, we won't buy your cheese"! etc etc.

1 comment:

  1. Once again the free market destroyed by great and greedy .So much for choice! The self centered U S of we want it all A destroys another choice .But remember you see them on the way up and then you see them on the way down .The Americans should be aware that the Chinese are waiting to gobble them and spit them out .

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