Cadbury kin plans rival chocolate company

LONDON - An heiress to the fortune of Cadbury, the famous British chocolatiers, is selling her 27 million pounds family estate to launch a chocolate company to rival American giant Kraft which took over the company earlier this year.

Felicity Loudon, great-great-great granddaughter of John Cadbury, who started the business in 1824, says: “I can’t accept that Cadbury has gone to America. To a plastic cheese company. I won’t accept it. I want to start again. I want to make chocolate and I’m jolly well going to do it.”

Kraft, whose brands include Dairylea, Philadelphia cheese and Ritz biscuits, took over Cadbury in an 11.9 billions pound deal. It has since launched a multi-million pounds campaign promoting a rival — German-made Milka bars — to Cadbury’s much-loved Dairy Milk chocolate.

Loudon, 61, said her great-grandfather George, who founded Cadbury’s famous Bournville headquarters in Birmingham, “would be spinning in his grave”.

She and her husband John, 74, a former merchant banker, have put Pusey House, their eight-bedroom home set in 100 acre near Faringdon, Oxfordshire, on the market.

They have lived there for 10 years and Loudon, who runs interior design company Private House, has described the property as the “most beautiful house in England”.

She told The Times that she “has been talking to wonderful chocolatiers”, but refused to divulge more details.

She said losing Cadbury amounted to a national treasure falling into American hands. She also fears the new owners may alter the Cadbury chocolate’s historic milk-rich recipe.

“If it does, its chocolate will never taste the same again. It will not be made the same way. And more than that, it will mean another bit of Britain is lost for ever,” she said.

The Cadbury family had moved from Exeter to run a draper’s shop in Birmingham at the beginning of the 19th century. George Cadbury founded Bourneville as a “garden village” in stark contrast to the then deplorable living standards in Birmingham.

The only rule in Bourneville was that alcohol would not be allowed. There are still no pubs in Bournville. And, it has the only alcohol-free branch of Tesco retail chain in Britain.