After Brexit, Chocolate Could Get Smaller, Cadbury Says

Even while committing to stay in Britain after Brexitt, the size of its products could be shrunk or the prices could be raised after Brexit, Cadbury has said.

the country would still be the “home of chocolate manufacturing” and the company would change and adapt to the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU, Glenn Caton, who is in charge of Cadbury in Britain, said.

The company may eventually have to pass on higher costs to customers by raising prices or shrinkflation – selling smaller products for the same price, even though the first focus would be on boosting productivity, Caton said.

To protect the quality and taste of its chocolate, the brand would have to make these changes, he said. He added that Cadbury would always “put the consumer at the heart and never compromise on quality and taste.”

Mondelēz International is the US owner of Cadbury and Caton is the president of the northern Europe division of the company.When it was controversially bought by Kraft for £12bn in 2010 the firm fell into American hands. Kraft then split into two companies. While one business was renamed Mondelēz and owns confectionery and snacks brands including Cadbury, Toblerone and Oreo, the other retained the Kraft name and focuses on US groceries, including its famous cheese products.

Including £75m on modernising manufacturing at Bournville in Birmingham, the home of the brand, the US company has invested more than £200m in the business, and hence Mondelēz is good for Cadbury, Caton, however, insists.

“I passionately believe we are fantastic guardians of the legacy of Cadbury and all of our other brands, and we are great owners of this business,” he said. “The investment that we have put in it in the last five years proves it. Our commitment to quality is absolute. I think this is really modern British manufacturing at its best.”

The tax Mondelēz pays was also defended by Caton. in the UK in 2015 and 2014, the last years for which figures are available, no taxes were paid by the company. He said: “The simple thing on tax is we pay all of the taxes in an absolutely above-board legal way according to the regulations of parts of the world that we operate in. We do pay, as a company, billions of dollars in tax on a global basis.”

Cadbury was founded in 1824. investing in Cadbury had paid off, said Caton, who joined Mondelēz in July 2013 from Direct Wines. “We have significantly improved productivity and competitiveness. If you go back five to 10 years ago it was costing roughly three times as much to make chocolate in the UK as it was in Germany. It required investment in order to make sure that we increased productivity and were competitive globally, and we are now.”

With the team growing from 25 to 250 over the last five years, Bournville is also Mondelēz’s global centre for chocolate research and development, as well as being a factory. There is also a global food science facility in Reading and a factory in Sheffield that makes Jelly Babies, Trebor mints and Ritz crackers.

When the UK leaves the EU, none of that will change, according to Caton,. He said: “It [the UK] is still going to be a huge market. It is still going to be the home of chocolate manufacturing, it is still going to be the home of global research and development. We are still going to have Reading as the centre of science. None of that changes.”

(Adapted from The Guardian)

Even while committing to stay in Britain after Brexitt, the size of its products could be shrunk or the prices could be raised after Brexit, Cadbury has said.

the country would still be the “home of chocolate manufacturing” and the company would change and adapt to the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU, Glenn Caton, who is in charge of Cadbury in Britain, said.

The company may eventually have to pass on higher costs to customers by raising prices or shrinkflation – selling smaller products for the same price, even though the first focus would be on boosting productivity, Caton said.

To protect the quality and taste of its chocolate, the brand would have to make these changes, he said. He added that Cadbury would always “put the consumer at the heart and never compromise on quality and taste.”

Mondelēz International is the US owner of Cadbury and Caton is the president of the northern Europe division of the company.When it was controversially bought by Kraft for £12bn in 2010 the firm fell into American hands. Kraft then split into two companies. While one business was renamed Mondelēz and owns confectionery and snacks brands including Cadbury, Toblerone and Oreo, the other retained the Kraft name and focuses on US groceries, including its famous cheese products.

Including £75m on modernising manufacturing at Bournville in Birmingham, the home of the brand, the US company has invested more than £200m in the business, and hence Mondelēz is good for Cadbury, Caton, however, insists.

“I passionately believe we are fantastic guardians of the legacy of Cadbury and all of our other brands, and we are great owners of this business,” he said. “The investment that we have put in it in the last five years proves it. Our commitment to quality is absolute. I think this is really modern British manufacturing at its best.”

The tax Mondelēz pays was also defended by Caton. in the UK in 2015 and 2014, the last years for which figures are available, no taxes were paid by the company. He said: “The simple thing on tax is we pay all of the taxes in an absolutely above-board legal way according to the regulations of parts of the world that we operate in. We do pay, as a company, billions of dollars in tax on a global basis.”

Cadbury was founded in 1824. investing in Cadbury had paid off, said Caton, who joined Mondelēz in July 2013 from Direct Wines. “We have significantly improved productivity and competitiveness. If you go back five to 10 years ago it was costing roughly three times as much to make chocolate in the UK as it was in Germany. It required investment in order to make sure that we increased productivity and were competitive globally, and we are now.”

With the team growing from 25 to 250 over the last five years, Bournville is also Mondelēz’s global centre for chocolate research and development, as well as being a factory. There is also a global food science facility in Reading and a factory in Sheffield that makes Jelly Babies, Trebor mints and Ritz crackers.

When the UK leaves the EU, none of that will change, according to Caton,. He said: “It [the UK] is still going to be a huge market. It is still going to be the home of chocolate manufacturing, it is still going to be the home of global research and development. We are still going to have Reading as the centre of science. None of that changes.”

(Adapted from The Guardian)



Categories: Economy & Finance, Geopolitics, Strategy, Sustainability, Uncategorized

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