To have only just noticed this about Cadbury chocolate??

[TrueFriendsStabYouInTheFront]

I have seen a lot on Mumsnet previously about Cadbury chocolate changing and not being nice, but I still thought it was nice up until literally now!

Last week I bought a creme egg, which was seriously horrible, but put it down to a bad batch maybe? Just opened a bag of mini eggs and they are foul! They even smell strange.

So have they changed the recipe yet again?

Some of the Green and Blacks organic bars do contain palm oil, for example the butterscotch and the Raisin and hazelnut:
www.naturalcollection.com/shop/green---blacks-milk-miniature-collection---180g-by-green-and-blacks/

As do some of their non organic bars (aka Velvet range), for example the salted caramel.

People are not prepared to pay for quality.

But they are prepared to pay for a name ...

Some of the Green and Blacks organic bars do contain palm oil, for example the butterscotch and the Raisin and hazelnut:

For some reason I am unsurprised.

Politicians too.

Agreed. When two or three behemoths have the monopoly, not only do they ignore the minnows, but they expect the general public to as well - at least enough not to cause them any great loss.

What difference can you really make with your one vote or your one chocolate bar purchase? Well, if enough people make that same difference each with their tiny individual power too, it can suddenly become a tidal wave.

@united4ever

"Ritter Sport are £1.50 in wilko....good chocolate and no palm oil i believe"

Only 99p in Lidl and are also on offer at Waitrose for £1 (usually £1.50) until 18th February.

The peppermint fondant one contains palm oil but most of the others don't. They also use real vanilla in their chocolate rather than artificial flavour (vanillin).

People are not prepared to pay for quality.

I agree, but it's a false economy. A single chunk/square of top-quality expensive chocolate can be savoured slowly and leave that satisfying taste in your mouth for some time afterwards. You could scoff all four of the bars in the £1 packet in one go and you still wouldn't feel any real satisfaction immediately after. One big bar of the proper stuff can last you ages.

It's Pavlovian, really - we buy it because we 'know' that anything sold as chocolate is desirable. Eating the cheap rubbish quickly disproves that notion, but the next time we're in a shop and see some, we have that same response and subserviently buy it again.

If, instead of having gorillas playing the drums in their adverts, they showed you orangutans being hauled terrified out of their habitats so that they can be destroyed for the palm oil, maybe people might just think again. They probably wouldn't, though....

From an article on Ethical Consumer website, might be of interest?

"These companies are palm oil free:
Chocolaterie Robert, Pacari, Moo Free, Madécasse, Divine, Booja Booja, Seed and Bean, Montezuma, and the Raw Chocolate Company.

These companies got our best rating for their palm oil policies, but are not palm oil free:
Vivani, Plamil, M&S, Mars, Waitrose and Windmill Organics (Biona).

These companies got our middle rating for their palm oil policies:
Ritter
Hotel Chocolat
Lindt
Ferrero (Thorntons)
Co-op
Lidl
Aldi
Guylian
Mars
Morrisons
Sainsbury’s
Asda

These companies scored our worst rating for their palm oil policies:
Hershey's
Nestle
Mondelez (Cadbury, Green and Blacks)"

Source: www.ethicalconsumer.org/palm-oil/palm-oil-free-chocolate

I moved to the U.S in 2003 and there was only that awful hard boiled oily gunk called Hersheys on sale.Shortly after we arrived it was Halloween and my kids went out and gathered a big bag of sweets and chocolate.The next day they sat down all excited to eat some of their swag .I didn't say anything and didn't stop them.They spat out every single piece that they tried because even to a child it was unrecognisable as chocolate .The other sweets just also tasted synthetic .I just stopped eating chocolate which was a good side effect and my kids were from then on not that into sweets.Living in Germany now and the Milka is also different and more 'oily'.i only eat dark chocolate Lindt now.

Well I’ve just tried Tonys and I’m not blown away.... it sure don’t taste like it costs

Wait I’m on the second block and slowly turning 🤣

I always look forward to my first bag of mini eggs but they are horrible this year. I've yet to risk a creme egg 🙁

I lived in the US for a year. I entirely stopped eating chocolate except for fancy expensive stuff from Wholefoods and their version of Cadbury mini eggs. Some of the whole foods ones were odd; I posted on her about one which had bits of cheese in it, but it was possible to get very nice chocolate. Hershey’s, as PPs have said, tastes of vomit. The lack of cheap chocolate means that now I’m back here I eat much less chocolate because I got out of the habit.

I just looked at the label on a Cadbury product.

"... vegetable fats (palm, sal, shea in varying proportions) ..."

It sounds like they just chuck in whatever they can get hold of. No wonder it tastes so awful.

Some of the Green and Blacks organic bars do contain palm oil, for example the butterscotch and the Raisin and hazelnut

The chocolate itself does not contain palm oil, it’s made with cocoa butter. It’s the butterscotch in that bar that contains the palm oil and the raisins that are coated with it. The plain milk/dark/white choc does not nor the ones with almonds or spices etc.

Cadbury's eggs are vile now and seriously small.

It's Pavlovian, really - we buy it because we 'know' that anything sold as chocolate is desirable. Eating the cheap rubbish quickly disproves that notion, but the next time we're in a shop and see some, we have that same response and subserviently buy it again.

Who’s we? I’ve never eaten shit chocolate even as a kid. I don’t really eat much chocolate full stop.

But I agree that if I’m going to bother it has to be good quality. Otherwise it’s just not nice.

I bought some Divine raspberry dark chocolate yesterday- it was lovely- currently on special offer at Waitrose.

The link on ethical chocolate producers was interesting- no surprise that Cadbury’s is bottom, but I thought the co-op would fare better. I’ve not heard of some of the top scorers though.

I like the PP’s idea of replacing the image of the drumming gorilla with the more realistic one of an orangutan being torn from the trees to make Cadbury’s dairy milk. I’ll keep that in my head in future when I’m tempted by a sea of crap chocolate.

Looks like it will be Waitrose’s own, and Divine for my regular supply from now on. I’m not that keen on the Tony chocolony taste unfortunately.

Any other recommendations for decent quality ethical non-palm oil chocolate that’s readily available?

I found out recently Milka doesn't have palm oil in it. It is fairly easily found in European shops they do loads of different ones as well. Its really nice and melts very smoothly

Milka belongs to Mondelez /Kraft also. In the past few years they have increased the variety of Milka and taken over many of the Cadbury flavours.So essentially its the same crap everywhere now.

Extremely sad how Cadbury an British family company sold out to the Americans. You think they have some pride...

American chocolate is shit and now our chocolate is shit.

A few Cadbury items seem to still taste nice. I can't be doing with cream eggs nor their chocolate bars (CDM, Whole Nut, F&Nut, Bourneville, caramel etc) as they now taste foul. But a few things still taste ok, such as flake, buttons and animal bars.

ukgift2016- I just looked it up - Cadbury's didn't want to sell, they had no choice, it was a hostile takeover bid by Kraft, and the Cadbury's shareholders who agreed to sell were apparently mainly hedge fund managers who aren't well known for their sentiment.

www.ft.com/content/1cb06d30-332f-11e1-a51e-00144feabdc0

That's why I like John Lewis- it has no greedy shareholders, and is owned by the employees, a much better model.

Extremely sad how Cadbury an British family company sold out to the Americans. You think they have some pride...

It's the price of being "open for business". It's hard for companies - especially companies with large corporate shareholders - to turn down takeover bids that would enrich said shareholders.

When Kraft wanted to buy Cadbury they had to appear before a Commons committee and give assurances about the future of the company.
One of those assurances was that they would keep all the factories open. As soon as the deal went through they closed one of the factories and sacked the staff. Much of the production now is from a big new factory in Poland.

Details here:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8507780.stm

I remember that, GladAllOver - it was in Somerset, wasn't it, where 'it appears' that they lied to and betrayed the workers?

Why were they not brought to book about this? Was it the government's way of showing that they're powerless or just that they make special 'arrangements' for very big companies?

I wonder how much of their product they sell in Somerset now? Have their sales dropped to the same extent of those of The Sun in Liverpool?