Creme Egg Jubilee

"Cadbury has always been a progressive brand that spreads a message of inclusion, whether it is through its products or brand campaigns.”

This statement was issued in response to Cadbury’s latest advert in which various characters, including a homosexual couple, eat Creme Eggs, to mark the product’s fiftieth anniversary. The couple share one in a rather suggestive way, with the contents spilling out of their mouths. Cadbury’s has a tradition of this sort of advertising. In more innocent days, we watched an attractive female enjoying a Flake while lying in the bath, and a black-clad man repeatedly breaking into women’s houses late at night to place a Milk Tray box next to their beds.

The latest ad has caused some cuffuffle, with the usual celebrity bores queuing up to be seen defending it and Cadbury’s benefitting from all the additional, free publicity. The statement, quoted above, begs a question. Why would a chocolate manufacturer be so concerned with spreading messages? Why can it not just concentrate on manufacturing and selling chocolate? Well, it isn’t Cadbury’s, not now. It is American conglomerate, Mondelez International Inc, with revenues exceeding $25 billion per annum.

While Mondalez is busy spreading its message of inclusion to British homes, it is alleged to have engaged in less virtuous affairs in poorer countries. Beneath the anodyne smiles and liberal credentials of big business, you’ll soon find the usual greed and exploitation. In 2018, Greenpeace International found that it has been purchasing palm oil from suppliers illegally felling rainforest. This very month, the Guardian reported that International Rights Advocates is suing the company on behalf of eight former child slaves from Ivory Coast who grew cocoa for Mondalez’s use. Cleary, the case will not be decided for some time, and a judge or jury may clear it of this latest allegation.

If the company spent less time sharing woke adverts and bragging about how progressive it is, while also declining to use black slaves and destroying forest, I might be more inclined to go and buy a Creme Egg. Until then, I’ll do without.

Image by WikimediaImages from Pixabay