Why Cadbury's new Creme Egg is not all it's cracked up to be

Harry Wallop
Telegraph UK
Robin Whitefield invented mini Creme Eggs – but is left unimpressed by the new version of the chocolate treat
From the reaction of consumers, you would have thought Cadbury had announced it was using rabbit droppings for its Chocolate Buttons and the tears of children to flavour its Crunchie bars.
Petitions have been signed (over 2,000 signatures so far), protest songs have been penned and broadcast on YouTube – “Why do you have to go and change? Don’t tell me they taste the same” – and commentators have joked about raising an army and invading America. At least, I think they are joking.
Yes, this was the response this week to Cadbury altering the chocolate it uses in its Creme Eggs. They used to be covered in Dairy Milk but now a more basic chocolate is being used.
The company pointed out that it was never marketed as a Cadbury Dairy Milk Creme Egg, merely a Cadbury Creme Egg, with a spokesman adding: “The fundamentals of the Cadbury Creme Egg remain exactly the same – delicious milk chocolate and the unique creme centre that consumers love.”
But to fans of the product these are weasel words.
“I’m not surprised people get upset, “ says Robin Whitefield. “Because chocolate and sweets are built into your earliest memories, people do feel strongly about it.”
Whitefield should know, because chocolate courses through his 78-year-old veins, being the son and grandson of chocolate makers and having a key role in the history of the Creme Egg.
The concept of a chocolate egg-shaped shell filled with gooey fondant dates back to the 1920s following Cadbury’s 1919 merger with J.S Fry and Sons, who pioneered the idea. Various other companies had their own version too. But it wasn’t until 1971 that Cadbury renamed theirs a Cadbury Creme Egg. Thanks to a major advertising campaign, it became our favourite Easter treat, with 200 million sold every year.
At the time, Whitefield was running his own mid-sized family chocolate company, Jamesons, famous for its Raspberry Ruffle bar, Jamesons caramels (both still available) and the Mint Leaf (sadly, no more), a dark chocolate in the shape of, yes, a mint leaf, and a serious 1980s rival to the After Eight.
He was obsessed with developing a mini creme egg, a far more difficult technical feat than a standard sized one. Cadbury had tried and failed. “We’re talking just half a gram of yellow fondant,” he says. Fusing the two halves together without squashing the 8g product was a tough egg to crack, however. Or, rather, not crack.
But he did it, and Jamesons mini creme eggs were a hit in Canada.
In the late 1980s Bassetts, of Liquorice Allsort fame, came knocking and the two companies merged. Then, a year later, Cadbury bought out Bassetts, including all of the Jamesons brands and the expertise of Whitefield, who ended up on the Cadbury board advising the company on how it could finally make a mini creme egg.
He was not a huge fan of Cadbury chocolate (“too sweet to my taste, and the vegetable fat in chocolate makes it quite coarse,”) but was a big admirer of the company and its Quaker origins.
“I think the word ethical would describe the Cadbury family attitude towards employing people,” he says. “They were properly looked after, given proper contracts. Now there is a feeling of uncertainty.”
He has looked on in dismay at some of the changes that have taken place at Cadbury since Kraft, owner of Oreo cookies and Philadelphia cheese, took over the company in 2010 in a hostile £11.5 billion acquisition.
Within weeks, Kraft shut a factory, despite promises during the deal that it would keep it open. This week 200 workers at Cadbury’s main factory in Bournville left the company as it made further cutbacks.
“It was a real example of an English company you could be proud of in every way,” says Whitefield. “I think as a country we’ve lost something.”
But it is not just employees and former directors who are upset. The US owner, now called Mondelez – the confectionery business of Kraft was split off into a separate company in 2012 — has tinkered with products.
At Christmas it stopped making chocolate coins and many cried foul when it rounded the corners on the chunks of Dairy Milk, sneakily trimming the pack size (but not the price) of the chocolate bar.
Products loved from our childhood are being sacrificed on the altar of profit.
So what does Whitefield make of the new Creme Egg. “Hmm, well it’s sweet.” He pauses, trying to be diplomatic. Then he gives up. “No. It’s just overwhelmingly sweet.”
He goes on: “I’ve always thought if you make a product, you should make it absolutely the best tasting, nicest possible product you can make. You’re making something for the enjoyment of other people – you should make it so you can’t make it any better. Well, that was my philosophy.”
He gently puts down the nibbled Creme Egg and does not finish it.