Cadbury launches Cocoa Life sustainability program in Australia

IT MAY have sold more than a million blocks in just a few weeks but Cadbury have said the sweet tooths of Australia will just have to go without.

THERE’S no shortage of variants of Cadbury Dairy Milk — from Rocky Road to Tropical Pineapple. Flavours come and go, but a Cadbury exec has revealed to news.com.au there is a variant that is unlikely to ever make it back to the shelves, despite selling in its millions at the time.

Paul Chatfield, the Associate Director for Everyday Chocolate at Mondelez, Cadbury’s US owner, divulged the flavour non-grata as the company announced the roll out of its $400m Cocoa Life sustainability program in Australia.

The company is also ploughing $13.5m into new equipment at its Hobart chocolate factory to make Dairy Milk blocks “smoother and creamier”.

Cadbury Caramilk bars were a big success with customers.

“People hanker for our past (Dairy Milk) flavours. Marble is the one with the most interest online,” said Mr Chatfield.

“Recently we brought back Caramilk and that created a fantastic reaction.”

But while he was noncommittal on whether those favourites would return regularly to the Dairy Milk fold (“We would never say never”), there is a flavour that we’ll not be able to savour — Cadbury Dairy Milk with Vegemite.

The controversial love child of sweet milk chocolate and savoury yeast extract raised eyebrows. Nonetheless, it was a huge success, shifting 1.2 million blocks in just a few weeks in 2015 as Australians wondered what beefy cocoa would taste like.

But if you missed out, bad luck, Mr Chatfield told news.com.au: “While Cadbury Dairy Milk with Vegemite was a great product to generate interest and get people trying our products, it’s not likely to be one we see back on the shelves anytime soon.”

Certainly, it would now be a more difficult task given the two brands have since parted company. In 2015, Cadbury and Vegemite were both owned by Mondelez but last year the spread was sold to Bega Cheese.

It’s unlikely you’ll see a Vegemite Cadbury chocolate block any time soon, says the company.

Talking of taste, Mr Chatfield said a new way of sourcing chocolate from West Africa, mostly Ghana, wouldn’t lead to any differences to Dairy Milk blocks..

“Cocoa Life is a $400m investment over 10 years into cocoa communities,” he said.

The logo will soon appear on Australian Dairy Milk blocks. Over time, the rest of the Cadbury range will come under the program.

It’s fair to say the Vegemite block divided opinion. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

To date, 92,000 farmers are producing chocolate for Cadbury, and other Mondelez chocolate brands, as part of the program that lists its aims as improving the livelihoods of cocoa farmers and developing their expertise.

But the program has faced a backlash as the chocolate giant moves to its own program and away from the independent certification it previously received from Fairtrade, which guarantees a floor price to farmers.

“This is not Mondelez verifying itself; at the heart of the program is independent verification,” said Mr Chatfield.

“We’ve been working in Ghana for 100 years so the concept of us working with farmers isn’t new.

“We’ll be working with partner organisations including Save the Children, World Vision and Fairtrade, so they remain partners, but the Cocoa Life program is much more than just certification, it’s about farming techniques, education, and schools through to freshwater programs.”

Cadbury’s owner, Mondelez, is introducing the Cocoa Life program, and its mark, to Australia.

Mr Chatfield said the cocoa supply chain would still be verified by Fairtrade. The company has also said current farmers will be paid no less under its new scheme.

Fairtrade Australia and New Zealand boss Molly Harriss Olson told news.com.au last year, when it was first signalled that Mondelez would bring Cocoa Life to Australia, that she would have preferred the company to have stuck with the Fairtrade mark.

“That would have been fantastic from our point of view. The Fairtrade logo is the most trusted model of certification and no corporate label will ever have that independent level of respect that Fairtrade has.”

The company will invest $13.5m in it’s Tasmania chocolate factory. Picture: Jason Edwards.

Ms Harris Olsen was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, however.

“For consumers [Mondelez’s] intentions are strong and we will be monitoring its impact and independently verifying that.”

Mr Chatfield was bullish about the Cocoa Life program. “A vibrant cocoa supply chain is essential for the future of chocolate. Without cocoa, there is no chocolate and without the next cocoa farming generation, there is no cocoa.”

As for out-there flavours, while Vegemite chocolate is a thing of the past, there might still be some surprises, he said.

“We are always looking for something which captures people’s attention and we’re pretty confident we’ve got a couple of those lined up in the next 12 months”.