Will Kraft’s plastic cheese smother Cadbury’s heritage?

Elliot Wilson says there are synergies between the takeover protagonists — but it will be sad to see the British chocolate maker swallowed by a bloated US conglomerate

When consumer goods giant Kraft tabled a £10.2 billion bid for Cadbury two weeks ago, the outcry was immediate and heartfelt. Here was an American monster buying an iconic British household name, one of our very last independent, home-grown, corporate crown jewels.

Some of the resentment was understandable. Cadbury’s heritage is part of our national psyche. Founded 185 years ago by John Cadbury, a Quaker tea-and-coffee trader, the firm’s aims were as much to do with social improvement as with profit. Moreover, Cadbury seemed to be a great survivor. Britain has long shed the last of its major indigenous carmakers and seen other business titans such as BT reduced to a shadow of their former selves. Cadbury rose above the industrial turmoil of the 1970s, and rode out the mergers-and-acquisitions boom of the past two decades.