More people power with chocolate!
Cadbury removes palm oil
By Sally Glaetzer
The Mercury
August 20, 2009 12:01am
CADBURY has caved in to pressure from outraged chocolate fanatics and pledged to remove palm oil from its Tasmanian-made blocks.
The company had tried to persuade Cadbury lovers its new recipe, replacing some cocoa butter with palm oil, would make its chocolate smoother, The Mercury reports.
But consumers were not convinced and Cadbury has been forced to apologise and revert to the original recipe, after being flooded with complaints.
“We are removing palm oil and returning to a cocoa butter only recipe for Cadbury’s entire moulded block chocolate range, including our flagship Cadbury Dairy Milk brand and product lines such as Old Gold and Dream,” Cadbury Australia managing director Mark Callaghan said yesterday.
“We will soon commence the production of a cocoa butter only recipe at Claremont in the coming weeks.”
Cadbury changed the Dairy Milk recipe earlier this year, at the same time as it downsized its chocolate blocks and changed its packaging. Rather than a money-driven decision, the company insisted it was adding palm oil to make the chocolate softer to bite. The Mercury website was inundated with comments from once-loyal Cadbury fans who vowed never to buy it again.
“Why do Cadbury imagine we would prefer an adulterated, second-rate product?” one reader said.
Hobart chocolate lovers Maggie Abraham and Nina Middleton-Tubb yesterday hailed Cadbury’s backflip as a sign of people power.
“If people can change chocolate, they can change the world,” joked Miss Abraham. Miss Middleton-Tubb said: “It is good that they listened to the fact that people didn’t like it.”
August 21st, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Why are people buying Cadbury choclate when it is not fairtrade certified ? Every time you eat chocolate that is sourced from slave/child labour in Africa and South America you are perpetuating the unjust and criminal behaviour of these so called entrpreneurs. Would you like your child to be kidnapped, worked to death and then kicked into a ditch like they were nothing ? This is what is happening over there. If you want to read the whole sordid history of chocolate read Bitter Chocolate. It gives the history starting with the Quaker involvement.
And Green and Black organic got taken over by Cadbury’s.! Not fairtade either.
August 21st, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I didn’t know that information about Green and Black actually, I doubt most people do…. This is where alot of well intended shoppers get stuck- carbon miles, ecologically sustainable (such as not using palm oil) vs ethical…It can be very hard for the average consumer to keep up. Thanks for your information, I will certainly scout out a copy of Bitter Chocolate.