Both Kraft and Hershey were interested in acquiring Cadbury’s. What do they both suggest to me? Cheese, Gromit, Cheese! Kraft ‘cos they make cheese, and Kershey because their apology for chocolate tastes of the stuff – if you think that’s unlikely try some and then tell me it doesn’t. So it seems Cadbury’s wasn’t going to escape the cheese monster one way or another.

Now there’s a big fuss, but is it justified? “What’s the worst that can happen?” Well, I think there are essentially two gaffs Kraft could make. Firstly, they could muck around with the recipe of our beloved Dairy Milk. Hands off! We don’t want it tasting of cheese, but we don’t want it “improved” into Belgian or Swiss chocolate either. Those guys think our British chocolate isn’t chocolate at all. If we wanted Belgian or Swiss chocolate, and sometimes we do, we’d buy some. Our Cadbury’s product is unique and we want it to stay that way.

Secondly, they could mess with the brand. Whatever the chocolate tastes like, you just ain’t going to enjoy is as much if it’s called Kraft. It will taste of cheese even if there’s none in it. Brands are about promises. Kraft promises easy to use cheese products, fine. Cadbury’s promises, well, not actually chocolate of course, but indulgence. You can’t get them confused.

It doesn’t really matter who owns the shares in the company, as long as the product tastes the same and the reassuring name is on the wrapper. Only time will tell if the new owners understand this.

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