Cadbury's taken over by Kraft

quote:

It's for the good of the shareholders.

That usually means it's bad for everybody else.

Looking forward to chocolate covered Philly.

I'm panic buying Crunchies

BTW some optimists think that the takeover means a better chance to export Cadbury products to the US and Canada.

Well, let me tell you, Cadbury's do sell their chocolate bars in Canada and the US and they taste like garbage.

You can do a side by side taste test between UK and Canadian Flakes, Diary Milk, etc and there is a huge difference in quality.

I get all my chocolate fixes from the local 'British' store which imports their Cadbury products from the UK.

quote:

You can do a side by side taste test between UK and Canadian Flakes, Diary Milk, etc and there is a huge difference in quality.

Not so much quality is it as opposed to being manufactured to US tastes - I can't abide most US chocolate - Hersheys? Yuk!

Jim

Having worked professionally with Kraft as a foodstuffs supplier in another life, I assure you that they will keep the quality intact and may, in fact, actually improve some things.

Cadburys make cr*p chocolate. Corporate raiders from the US can't make it any worse. But if, on the odd occasion that I want to eat chocolate, I'll go for Montezuma's or something from Paris or Belgium.

quote:

they will keep the quality intact

Its not the quality we are worried about, its the taste. Cadbury's is unique & sets the standard in taste for UK chocolate,
US beers quality is excellent, but it tastes like nothing in a glass.

Mike

quote:

Cadbury's is unique & sets the standard in taste for UK chocolate,

I think there may be a bit of hyperbole there!

Jim

Sadly, it may be correct, tastes like sh*te, as does most chocolate produced in the UK.

got to agree. Uk chocolate is execrable.

LOL..now you guys have gone the other way!

Jim

Disagree re all UK chocolate

Hotel Chocolate now make quite a bit of their product range in the UK as well as importing some from mainland Europe.

Hotel Chocolate is rather nice.

A great "British Tradition" of bunging a load of vegetable fat and sugar together with a little bit of cocoa and calling it "chocolate".

Cadbury's is crap. Good riddance.

I like it, that nasty pure foreign stuff yuuchh.

Only 10% of the Cadbury's workforce are located in the UK - the name and a few products are a British tradition. Cadbury was already a multinational but with its shares owned by "British" financial institutions. Now it is to be owned by an American shareholder leveraging the purchase with $8 billion of debt and looking for cost savings of £400 million a year!
As a small shareholder I will take their shilling and wave goodbye.

J

This is an example - if I am reading the runes right - of Globalisation.

Whether this is a good thing is probably a matter of opinion, but the French would never have let it happen.

I suspect that it will mainly be a good thing for the new shareholders, and a bad thing for the workforce.

I doubt the customer will notice much change.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by bob mccluckie:
got to agree. Uk chocolate is execrable.

Indeed. But American chocolate is even worse.

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
This is an example - if I am reading the runes right - of Globalisation.

Whether this is a good thing is probably a matter of opinion, but the French would never have let it happen.

I suspect that it will mainly be a good thing for the new shareholders, and a bad thing for the workforce.

I doubt the customer will notice much change.

ATB from George

Spot on George. Whether Cadbury's chocolate is any good is a bit of a moot point (although I have a real soft spot for Crunchies and Wispas). It's a company with a long and sometimes noble history, and a company with a real connection to this country, sold out to a dull, rather anonymous Yank conglomerate with a slightly dodgy environmental record. By a supine board.

And you're right - the French would NEVER have allowed a Cadbury-type company to be sold like that. I bet a few people in the UK will now lose their jobs as Kraft, which will be burdened with debt, struggles to cut costs.

What a shame.

If you think British chocolate is crap, you should try US or Canadian Dairy Milk ... it really is disgusting.

It would put a chocaholic off chocolate for life - trust me it happened to me ! But then I found a British store and a German store who carried the imported stuff - I remember it being better, but what can you do ?

SOme Euro 'fine' chocolate is better, but for normal chocolate Cadbury's was the best.

A tragedy more British history gone, give it twelve months and that area will be covered with flats

quote:

Originally posted by shoot6x7:
It's for the good of the shareholders.

Don't kid yourself, research has shown that most mergers do not work out well for either company. In fact the predictability of success is the percent ownership by the management.

What usually occurs is that the management of the purchased company makes huge money and the shareholders actually suffer the consequences.

quote:

A tragedy more British history gone, give it twelve months and that area will be covered with flats

For those around and in Bournville this could ring horribly true. I have had a great many family members work there in the past and not one of them has ever had a bad word to say about the place or the work. Tradition yes, but how many other owners of companies did what Cadbury (admitedly a time ago now) did for its workforce? It was not just a place to work but an entire comunity after work also.
As for the chocolate & whether it is to 'your' taste - well that is only ever going to be a matter of personal choice - but sales of it tell a rather good story eh?

Yeah, 50 million Germans couldn't have been wrong...


Kurt Vonnegut: "90 percent of everything is crud".

quote:

Originally posted by Steve2701: Tradition yes, but how many other owners of companies did what Cadbury (admitedly a time ago now) did for its workforce? It was not just a place to work but an entire comunity after work also.

I would suggest that the shoemaker C&J_Clark is but one example of companies that cared for their workforce much along the lines of Cadbary and many other Quaker business concerns.

99% of company`s these days do not give a shit about the employee,you are just a number like the firm i used to work for, profits and targets is what matters. They do not seem to realise that if they looked after you it would come full circle and you would always go the extra mile for the good of the company, instead they spend there time pissing you off which also comes full circle and is bad for everyone. This comes about because of graduates and fast tracked people [managers] who know f*@#k all about the job but talk a good job trying to use the three b`s
bullshit baffles brains.