Cadbury Kraft

“It's probably much harder for the people who have stayed behind as it's a completely different company than to the one they used to work for.”

One of the workers she acquired, Victor Fulford, 53, keeps his eye on the flowing machinery. After 36 years at Cadbury he's acutely aware of the change his new boss has brought.

“Its been a busy year. We just hope the sales are okay, but we never know. There's more pressure on us now to get more eggs out. They want everything to get faster and faster. They've got six robots now where we used to have six people, and they have one person running it.”

Carole Green, 60, looks flustered as she stacks yellow boxes for the eggs, “We've had a few stops and starts with machines playing up today. When I first started here, after I left school, it was a very different place to work there wasn't so much pressure. There's a lot of pressure at the moment. Then, this room was full of women doing it by hand, so that's changed. It's a mad job now.” Kraft boasts that Carole and Victor work on “the most efficient egg line in the world.” But at a price.

Relentless lines of shiny purple-wrapped eggs climb a conveyor then whiz off along a high track to the other side of the room for packaging, while robotic arms place chocolate shells on top of one another at dizzying speeds. For years the bags of small, individually wrapped mini-egg treats were made at the factory in Bristol. But after the Kraft takeover it was closed amid fury last year. Now the mini eggs are shipped in from Poland!

Wayne Hunt, 41, a heavy-set man who looks out of place crammed between his hairnet and a small stool, is throwing purple eggs into crates. Until recently he worked in the warehouse at Somerdale. He has been transferred. “I started my job on the lorries,” he says. “I think if I did this for too long I'd go mad. I'm sick of seeing eggs now, they're everywhere, I don't think I'll eat any now, my kids might, but I'd