Bournville villagers worry as Kraft eyes Dairy Milk buyout

AROUND the neat, red-brick houses and the cricket ground in Bournville, where the Cadbury family built their chocolate business amid the industrial sprawl of central England, the villagers are anxious.

Kraft Foods of the US, the second-largest food company, is seeking a takeover of Cadbury, their local employer, although the British chocolate maker has rejected an initial 10,2 billion pound (N$127,3 billion) bid.’I think they’ll destroy what Cadbury brought up,’ said Kathleen Handley, 86, who worked for the company in Bournville for 23 years until 1982. ‘They’d help you out in a way that no one else does anymore. We didn’t want for anything.’Cadbury was started in the 19th century by Quakers, a religious group that campaigned for social justice at a time when workers lived in slums and boys were used to clean chimneys. Over the years, its Dairy Milk chocolate in purple and white wrapping became a household name and is still to the British what Hershey bars are to the Americans.The brick Cadbury factory was built on fields in Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city, and opened in 1879.The plant, which employs 2 500 people, or about six per cent of the total Cadbury workforce, is surrounded by the houses that shelter its workers, as well as gardens, school buildings and a social club.’Cadbury have fought them off for now but they’ll be back,’ said Louise Griffiths. Should there be a foreign buyer like Kraft, ‘it will probably make them more remote from us, when Cadbury was always an integral part of Bournville’.Cadbury shares soared 39 per cent on Monday as investors bet Kraft’s offer might flush out competing bids from Switzerland’s Nestlé and Hershey of the US. The stock was up two per cent to 7,985 pounds in London morning trade, valuing the company at about 700 million pound more than the Kraft offer.Kraft said that buying the British company would create a ‘global powerhouse’ with annual revenue of about US $50 billion (N$381 billion). The company said it aimed to ‘encourage and further’ dialogue with Cadbury after it was rebuffed.’Everyone (in Bournville) has huge pride and huge ties and I think most people will be worried by this development,’ said Nigel Dawkins, a city councillor whose mother used to work at Cadbury.As the UK entered recession, Birmingham, with a population of one million, experienced its fair share of job losses as local manufacturers fired or laid off workers because orders collapsed. Earlier, in 2005, MG Rover collapsed with the loss of 6 500 jobs at its Longbridge car plant, a few kilometres from Bournville.At its peak in the 1960s, Longbridge produced 40 per cent of the cars bought in the UK, including Triumph, Austin, Land Rover and Morris brands.Employees at the Cadbury factory declined to comment on Monday as they filed home. Cadbury, which employs 45 000 worldwide, still sells chocolate carrying the Bournville name.’Cadbury know and understand that Bournville is a huge part of the brand,’ said Dawkins. ‘If Kraft buys it, it will just be another brand in the whole spectrum.’The company goes back to a store in the city opened by John Cadbury in 1824 to sell tea, coffee and cocoa. After the business passed through the hands of various members of the Cadbury family, by the end of the 19th century the company was making milk chocolate aimed at beating Swiss rivals.’I couldn’t imagine it going but I dare say it will,’ said Frieda Richards, 90, who joined Cadbury when she was 14 and worked at the factory until she was 60. ‘It was marvellous… I loved it, I practically lived here. You didn’t need anything outside.’ -Business Report