From listening to radio phone-ins and various vox pops around the UK, I’ve concluded that the Great British public is sitting on the fence when it comes to deciding whether this is good for Cadbury or not. Some seem to think that Cadbury represents the queen, flag and country and that Kraft’s distinctly American takeover will result in everything going so terribly wrong.
Our sense of national pride is often called into action when we think we’re being hard done by in the UK. We’ve had the same thing with Rolls-Royce and BMW, and a similar scenario with Rover and … um … BMW. Alas, we got arguably better cars out of the deal, and I predict we’ll get better chocolate out of this one.
I take that back. It’s hard to beat the creamy, hardly-any-cocoa taste of a bag of Cadbury’s Giant Buttons, but I also love Toblerone and Dime Bars (both Kraft). And even though these stories are often more about the money, the personnel and the location change, I’m choosing to come at this from the taste angle because that’s what it’s really all about for me. My sense of national pride will not be dented by a Toblerone (though it may stick in the throat for a while).
My experience of mergers and acquisitions, albeit primarily from the consumer point of view, is that terrible things hardly ever happen. I imagine that our beloved Cadbury taste won’t change (much), and that this may actually be a grand deal for everyone involved.
And perhaps now, when I visit the US, I won’t have to pay £5 for a bar of Dairy Milk.
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