If you like a lot of chocolate… steer clear of America

Ex-pats in the States are up in arms this morning over the announcement that Hersheys have struck a licensing deal preventing British-made Cadburys chocolate from being exported for sale in the good ol’ USofA (land of liberty*). Evidently the colour of our toffee crisp and dark chocolate kitkat wrappers has their marketing department in fits of knuckle-chewing terror that someone expecting sugary cardboard infused with palm oil might inadvertently end up with a mouthful of actual chocolate. Instead, Hersheys will kindly produce things that look like Cadburys chocolate, but to a completely different recipe which is basically like saying they’ll make Heinz macaroni and cheese, but with sprouts in place of the macaroni, and coffee instead of the cheese sauce.

All that being said, I don’t honestly understand the wailing about the loss of access to Cadburys product – have they tasted any of it recently? I know the official Cadburys line is that the recipe for their standard chocolate bar hasn’t changed and that any difference in quality is down to poor storage but not only is there a noticeable difference in taste and texture (waxier, sweeter, cheaper basically), their Dairy Milk now behaves like Lidl’s cheapest 30p a bar milk chocolate when used in cooking – instead of smooth glossy melted chocolate you get a little slick of oil, and a lump of ‘brown’.

I suppose we should thank them really – we’re all supposed to be eating more healthily, cutting out sweet treats and empty calories – and I’d rather have a ripe mango or a punnet of gloriously perfumed strawberries as a sweetie than a greasy slab of purest ‘brown’ any day.

 

*As long as you’re the right colour, solvent, educated, express no non-binary gender alignment or sexual preference, toe the corporate line and obediently buy only that which shores up large businesses regardless of cost or quality