Cadbury's

There seems to be a feeling in the UK that the purchase of Cadbury by Kraft is robbing the country of something. Whilst it may be understandable that people harbour suspicions of the makers of Kraft cheese slices, which terrorised so many of us in our youth, it has to be said that for the chocolate aficionado Cadbury’s Dairy Milk is no great shakes either. It contains so little cocoa that they had to get a dispensation from the European Union to allow it to be called chocolate. They now use environmentally unfriendly palm oil instead of cocoa butter.

Useful facts to bear in mind are

The Headquarters is not in Bourneville but in Uxbridge

Many Cadbury products such as chocolate fingers, ice cream etc are made by other companies, using the name under licence

Only one in seven of Cadbury’s employees works in the UK

The Chief Executive is not Mr Cadbury but Todd Stitzer (of the Bourneville Stitzers, presumably) who earns £4 million a year, more than the vast majority of evil bankers.

The Cadbury board can’t agree to a sale; only the shareholders, who own the company, can. It seems they would rather have the money than their Cadbury shares.

The money the shareholders receive will not necessarily leave the UK (assuming it was from the UK in the first place). It might be used to create more British jobs. What decides whether this is a net loss to Britain is whether international investors want to keep their money in Britain, given the Government's lack of economic policy. Nothing to do with Kraft at all.