John Cadbury Case

Introduction

Cadbury is best known for its confectionery products such as Dairy Milk chocolate, the Crème Egg and the Roses selection box. It was established by John Cadbury in Birmingham in 1824. At that time, he was selling tea, coffee and drinking chocolate. He developed the company with his brother Benjamin and later on his sons Richard and George.

In 1905, Dairy Milk chocolate has been introduced by using a higher proportion of milk within the recipe. The chocolate was the company’s best-selling product. Later, it was owned by Kraft Foods in 2010.On 4th of August 2011, Kraft Foods announced that they would be splitting the company into two starting on 1st of October 2012. The confectionery business of Kraft Foods became Mondelez International in which Cadbury is a subsidiary. The company was owned by Mondelez International, a British multinational company.

In Malaysia, Cadbury Confectionery Sales (M) Sdn Bhd is responsible to manufacture and distribute Cadbury-branded chocolates. Cadbury is Malaysia’s best-selling chocolate brand and have been manufactured for over 40 years in Malaysia alone. The office is located at section 15 Shah Alam.

Cadbury is a fast growing confectionery company and become the second largest company after Hershey. They came out with variety range of chocolate products into the market like Dairy Milk, Crunchie, Time out, Picnic as well it owns Maynards and Halls.

Executive Summary

In 2014, the image of Cadbury was tarnished by the issue of porcine DNA was found in the Cadbury chocolates. Unfortunately, the report was leaked on social media before the Malaysian health ministry made an official announcement about it. This issue became viral on social media which is revealed two different Cadbury chocolate, Cadbury Dairy Milk Hazelnut and Cadbury Dairy Milk Roast Almond are contaminated with pork DNA in Cadbury chocolate that labeled as Halal product.

Despite not having the actual laboratory test results for verification, Cadbury Malaysia proactively initiated a voluntary nationwide recall of the affected batches on the following day, 24th of May 2014. But people’s trust toward Cadbury went down especially for the Muslim consumers. Cadbury should take a serious concern about this matters by regularly checked all the Cadbury products to ensure they are permissible according to Islamic law and Halal to be eaten.

All media started playing their roles by reporting the issue from varied angles. Some of them are reporting neutral and some of the news portraying negative image of Cadbury chocolate to the public. Public started to have doubts toward Cadbury Halal’s certificate from JAKIM (Malaysian Islamic Development Department). People also started to express their disappointment as stated by Abu Bakar Yahya, Chief of Perkasa Selangor that