48 Fun Facts About Cadbury

Cadbury's 2007 advert of a gorilla drumming alone in a studio was cut to which Phil Collins song?

In the Air Tonight plays over one 90-second tracking shot, and Cadbury reported Dairy Milk sales up 9% after the ad aired; it even sent the song back to number one in New Zealand in 2008.

Which instant mashed potato, famous for its laughing Martian adverts, was launched in the 1960s by Cadbury?

Smash was a chocolate firm's sideline until 1974, when the Smash Martians, cackling at humans who still peeled potatoes, turned it into a convenience-food hit; Premier Foods owns it now.

Which son of founder John Cadbury produced the first heart-shaped Valentine's box of chocolates in 1868?

Richard Cadbury was the first chocolate-maker to sell romance, and a decade later he and his brother bought the open land south of Birmingham that became Bournville.

Which Cadbury chocolate, priced at 10p from its 1990s relaunch until 2005, is Britain's informal inflation gauge?

Freddo's 10p price became the benchmark: when it reached 30p in 2017 the outcry made national news, and Tesco marked its centenary in 2019 by selling the frog for 10p again for a week.

In 2015 Cadbury angered fans by replacing the Dairy Milk shell of which Easter favourite with a standard cocoa-mix chocolate?

Creme Egg fans complained loudly, and the multipack shrank from six eggs to five at the same time; Cadbury's defence was that the egg had never been sold as a Dairy Milk product.

Cadbury Australia's 2015 Dairy Milk bar, mixing milk chocolate and caramel, was flavoured with which yeast spread?

Vegemite made up 5% of the bar, a patriotic stunt from a firm that first reached Australia as an export market before opening a factory there.

Cadbury became the first-ever sponsor of which ITV soap in July 1996, a deal that ran a decade?

Coronation Street paused the Cadbury idents for months in 2006 after a recall of more than a million bars, and the chocolate firm then declined to renew.

Which actress, later a Hogwarts professor in the Harry Potter films, voiced the languid rabbit in Cadbury's Caramel adverts?

Miriam Margolyes, the films' Professor Sprout, gave the Caramel bunny its languid drawl and went on to voice Fly the sheepdog in the 1995 film Babe.

Cadbury Australia's Caramello, a caramel-filled chocolate, is shaped like which animal?

A koala full of caramel is so familiar in Australia that in 2003 one MP mocked a rival as a 'Caramello Koala', soft in the centre.

Frank Muir sang 'Everyone's a fruit and nutcase' for Cadbury in the 1970s to a ballet tune by which composer?

Tchaikovsky wrote the 'Danse des mirlitons' for The Nutcracker, which is why the nutty jingle borrowed it; the advert ranked 36th in Channel 4's 2000 poll of the 100 greatest adverts.

Cadbury's owner took a new name in 2012 that pairs 'delez', a play on delicious, with a Latin word meaning what?

World, from the Latin mundus, gave Kraft's spun-off snacks business the name Mondelez in 2012; Cadbury went with it while the grocery half later merged with Heinz.

Founder John Cadbury promoted drinking chocolate as a wholesome alternative to what?

Alcohol was the enemy: John Cadbury was among the first to sign the pledge of Birmingham's temperance society, and by his death he had been teetotal for half a century.

Which American company bought Cadbury's US arm in 1988, taking the rights to make its chocolate there?

Hershey makes a different recipe, and its lawsuit made a US importer stop bringing in British-made Cadbury bars by early 2015, to the fury of expats who prefer the original.

Cadbury's 1969 merger partner, whose US drinks arm was split off in 2008 as Dr Pepper Snapple, was which company?

Schweppes gave the combined group a drinks cabinet that grew to include Canada Dry, Snapple and Royal Crown before the 2008 demerger left Cadbury a pure sweets maker.

Cadbury World, built on the Bournville site for £6 million in 1990, was formally opened in 1991 by which prime minister?

John Major cut the ribbon eight months after paying visitors first arrived, and the attraction has since grown far beyond the factory tour it was never meant to be.

Cadbury launched Miniature Heroes in 1999 as a response to which rival assortment, launched by Mars two years earlier?

Celebrations had a two-year head start, so Cadbury spent £4.8 million on a launch campaign calling its tin 'The people magnet'; the 'Miniature' was dropped in 2002.

Cadbury introduced tins of Roses in 1938 to compete with which Mackintosh's assortment launched two years before?

Quality Street had been on sale since 1936, and one story says Cadbury's reply was named after Rose Brothers of Gainsborough, the firm whose machines wrapped each sweet.

Which Cadbury bar of two chocolate-coated Flake-style fingers was invented in Dublin and launched in Ireland in 1985?

Twirl began as a single finger from Cadbury Ireland and crossed to Britain in 1987, by which time it had grown into the two-finger bar sold today.

Which lumpy Cadbury bar of peanuts, caramel, nougat and puffed rice was advertised as 'deliciously ugly'?

Picnic owned its looks so completely that Cadbury later signed the bar up to Tinder to court singles; in Russia it even comes in a walnut version.

In 2024, its bicentenary year, Cadbury lost which distinction that it had held since 1854?

Its royal warrant dated from Queen Victoria, but the list issued under King Charles III in December 2024 left Cadbury off; no reason was given, though campaigners had urged him to drop firms still trading in Russia.

Which rival's objections tied up Cadbury's 1995 and 2004 trademarks on its shade of purple in court for years?

Nestlé won a key round in 2013, when the Court of Appeal ruled Cadbury's description of the colour too vague to register, though the fight over Pantone 2685C rumbled on.

Which British bank drew fire in 2009 for helping to fund Kraft's hostile bid for Cadbury?

RBS, mostly owned by taxpayers after its bailout, helped bankroll the bid; an opposition spokesman called it a scandal for a nationalised bank to back the takeover of a British firm.

Kraft earned a Takeover Panel rebuke for shutting which Cadbury factory near Bristol it had said it would keep open?

Somerdale at Keynsham had made Fry's chocolate since the 1920s; Kraft confirmed its closure within weeks of the 2010 deal and shifted the work to Skarbimierz in Poland.

Which organic chocolate company, founded in 1991, did Cadbury buy in 2005?

Green & Black's took its name from the founders' 'green' ideals and the dark, 'black' chocolate they wanted to sell; Cadbury paid about £20 million and pledged to run it as a separate business.

Which attractions giant was announced in 2022 as the new operator of Cadbury World?

Merlin Entertainments, the group behind Alton Towers and Legoland, agreed to take over the running of the Bournville attraction, a deal that first needed the competition regulator's approval.

Cadbury closed its factory in which New Zealand city in 2018, ending a carnival that raced Jaffas down Baldwin Street?

Dunedin lost the plant when Mondelez moved production to Australia, and a local crowdfunding bid to keep part of it running was abandoned; the site was then sold for a new hospital.

Cadbury's first factory outside Britain, opened in 1921 with its own model estate, is in which Australian state?

Tasmania won the Claremont works, near Hobart, with cheap hydro-electricity and plentiful fresh milk, and Cadbury modelled the estate on Bournville, with its own village and sports grounds.

Which 1924 bar of cherries and coconut in dark chocolate came to Cadbury with MacRobertson's in 1967?

Cherry Ripe is one of Australia's oldest chocolate bars and still among the country's top sellers a century after launch.

Cadbury's malted drink Bournvita lent its name to a famous quiz contest, launched in 1972, in which country?

India has followed the Bournvita Quiz Contest since 1972, and Derek O'Brien, who hosted it on television, went on to sit in the upper house of the country's Parliament.

Cadbury Fingers biscuits were baked under licence until 2016 by which British biscuit maker?

Burton's, the maker of Jammie Dodgers and Wagon Wheels, sold the Cadbury biscuit rights to Mondelez in 2016 but went on baking the Fingers in its own factories under a manufacturing deal.

Which Cadbury bar sold forty million in its first week after a Tuesday launch in September 1996 named in its honour?

Fuse arrived everywhere at once on 'FuseDay', 24 September 1996, Cadbury's first fully national launch in 20 years, yet the bar was withdrawn in 2006.

Which Cadbury bar, launched in 1948 with 'Milk' in its original name, got a 1970s jingle by Manfred Mann's Mike d'Abo?

Fudge dropped the 'Milk' from its name, and the 'finger of Fudge is just enough' jingle was sung on the advert by a young Clive Griffin, later a chart singer.

The 2008 sequel to Cadbury's gorilla advert had customised airport trucks racing at night to which Queen song?

Don't Stop Me Now was later swapped for Bon Jovi's 'Livin' on a Prayer', and a 2009 follow-up replaced the trucks with two children's dancing eyebrows.

Cadbury's 1866 'Cocoa Essence', a purer cocoa, used a butter-removing press developed in which country?

The Netherlands supplied the press that squeezed out unpalatable cocoa butter, and the profit it brought rescued a firm that had been losing money when John Cadbury's sons took over in 1861.

During the Second World War, parts of Cadbury's Bournville works switched to making milling machines and seats for what?

Fighter aircraft seats came off lines built for chocolate; Bournville also turned out gun doors for Spitfires, gas masks and jerrycans, a turn to war work for a firm founded by Quakers.

In 1900 George Cadbury gave up personal ownership of the Bournville estate by handing it to what?

A charitable trust, the Bournville Village Trust, still manages the estate, which now covers about 1,000 acres; George's widow Elizabeth took over as its chair in 1922.

Which future children's author was among the Repton schoolboys who taste-tested Cadbury's new chocolates in the early 1930s?

Roald Dahl and his schoolmates rated boxes of new Cadbury bars at Repton, and his daydream of inventing one to impress Mr Cadbury later grew into Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Since 2007 Cadbury's head office has sat in a business park near which town west of London rather than in Birmingham?

Uxbridge Business Park, actually just over the Buckinghamshire line in Denham, has housed Cadbury House since the firm left Mayfair in 2007 to save money; the chocolate is still made at Bournville.

Which Cadbury bar of two hollow twisted fingers went nationwide in 1989 and vanished from shelves in June 2005?

Spira sold so fast in its first regional test that the factory could not keep up, so Cadbury withdrew it, built more capacity and tried again before the 1989 national launch.

Cadbury's 1967 nougat-and-caramel rival to the Mars Bar was named after which ancient people?

Aztec did not last; Cadbury brought it back in 2000 as Aztec 2000, only to drop it again soon afterwards.

Cadbury's aerated Wispa, its answer to Rowntree's Aero, was trialled in which English region in 1981?

The North East tested the bubbles for two years before the 1983 rollout, and in 2003 Cadbury briefly killed the brand by renaming it Dairy Milk Bubbly.

Which Cadbury chocolate box was first delivered in a 1968 TV advert by a daring, James Bond-style action man?

Milk Tray's mystery man carried out daunting raids, in one advert outrunning an avalanche, to leave the box, 'all because the lady loves Milk Tray'; the campaign ran until 2003 and returned in 2016.

The flowing Cadbury script logo, adopted worldwide in the 1970s, copies the 1921 signature of which family member?

William Cadbury was the founder's grandson and Lord Mayor of Birmingham from 1919 to 1921; his handwriting outlived the company's independence and still fronts the brand.

George Cadbury bought which national newspaper in 1901 to campaign against the Boer War and for old-age pensions?

The Daily News, later the News Chronicle, gave the Quaker chocolate-maker a pulpit against sweatshop labour and Joseph Chamberlain's imperial policy.

Which instrument stands by the village green and Quaker meeting house in Cadbury's Bournville?

A carillon was George Cadbury's gift to the village in 1906, ordered after he heard the famous bells of Bruges on a visit to Belgium; it began with 22 bells and now has 48.

George Cadbury saved which timber-framed Tudor house from ruin by having it moved to Bournville, a job finished in 1916?

Selly Manor, first recorded in 1476, was dismantled and rebuilt on its new site, where it now shows the Laurence Cadbury collection of early furniture beside the medieval hall Minworth Greaves.

Which Business Secretary warned Kraft in 2009 not to 'make a quick buck' from its hostile bid for Cadbury?

Peter Mandelson's warning came as Kraft formalised a £9.8 billion bid that Cadbury's board rejected as undervaluing the firm, before a higher deal went through in January 2010.

With parkland laid out around the works, Cadbury's Bournville plant became known as 'the factory in a' what?

Garden was the boast of a plant four miles south of Birmingham, and Cadbury's 1908 dark-chocolate bar took the village's name to go with it.