Chocs away? (From Evesham Journal)

Chocs away?

11:02am Thursday 28th January 2010

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Re the Cadbury takeover by the American company Kraft, and funded by the Royal Bank of Scotland, I never worked at Cadbury, but as as a “Brummie” with a manufacturing background (ex Lucas), have always felt immense pride at the hard work, care and forward thinking of the Cadbury forefathers (who must be all spinning in their graves today), and admired the way in which Cadbury has flourished over the years and looked after its workforce and community. Cadbury is everything that Kraft is not.

The powers that be tell us it is a “free market” and that there is nothing we can do about it. If this is so, then why are French, German, American, etc, companies all protected by business law, preventing this very same process on their soil, yet we in Britain are not?

I bet we never live to see the day that Peugeot, BMW or General Motors are ever taken over by anyone, least of all by us!

To think that this fabulous profitable, proud old Birmingham firm has been aggressively bought by an in-debt American plastic cheese maker, with money borrowed from a publicly owned and financed, propped-up so called British bank (who Cadbury has banked with for decades!), makes me feel physically sick.

I and many others feel as though we have had our history and heritage stripped from us. The people of the West Midlands have had so much taken from them already – many longstanding companies disappearing altogether after being sold off to the highest foreign bidder. Rover, Lucas (seven factories in Birmingham alone!), HP Sauce and now Cadbury.

We are completely outraged and will never either forgive or forget it.

Helen Donovan, St Margaret’s Road, Evesham

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