All water under the bridge?

New Year's Eve.

I had thought about taking a rest from blogging.

But reading the New Year's Honours List I was amazed and disgusted to see that Roger Carr has got a knighthood.

This is the man who (more than anyone, although others are also guilty) let Kraft take over Cadbury.

Just to remind you, Cadbury was an integrated British manufacturing company. Now its production facilities are being moved off-shore and its headquarters are being moved to Switzerland. This is a shameless example of asset-stripping.

Does Roger Carr think this is all water under the bridge? Does he think it can all be brushed to one side? Does he laughingly think there isn't going to be any come-back for what he has done?

Tony Macalister wrote a good article on the Carr knighthood, but is it not possible for him to use the freedon of information act to ask: who proposed Roger Carr for a knighthood; what were the reasons put forward to justify this knighthood; who agreed that he should receive this honour?

The whole de-industrialisation process will have to be reversed

Above: I was very encouraged by reports earlier in the week that Business Secretary Vince Cable is going to make it harder for foreign take-overs similar to Kraft's raid on Cadbury. The takeover of Cadbury was done with leveraged finance (ie the deal was loaded with debt) and the debt paid for by exporting British jobs to cheaper parts of the world. Unpleasant, unacceptable face of capitalism, as they say.



Above: a selection of Eurochoc - what does it matter if the chocolate we eat is made in Poland or Belgium or Ireland since globalisation is good for everyone.

Mind you, even Jonathan Freedland on The Long View tried to maintain that the Cadbury take-over was nothing to get bothered about (unless of course you are one of those who have been made unemployed).

Globalisation is inevitable and good for everyone.

But what happens in say thirty years time when salaries in the Far East and Europe are roughly equitable (the Chinese ones rising, the European ones absolutely plummeting)? There will then be no advantage in making manufactured goods in the Far East - they may as well be made close to the local European markets to save the cost of transport. So the whole de-industrialisation process will have to be reversed.

In the meantime a few (comparatively very few) people will have made huge amounts of money out of globalisation while everyone else is going to pay.

Pelt her with creme eggs

Above: Beeches chocolates are hard to find but worth the effort. Fabulous chocolate taste. As soon as you take one chocolate you have to keep going until they are all gone.

The Today programme this morning reported that the predatory Irene Rosenfeld, CEO of Kraft and despoiler of chocolate companies, has slunk into the United Kingdom on a "low profile" visit to Cadburys.

Is no-one going to pelt her with creme eggs?

http://www.beechsfinechocolates.com/

House of Dorchester chocolates

I read about House of Dorchester chocolates in the Guardian (in an article about town planning by Tom Smedley).

You can buy them in Waitrose (but unfortunately there isn't a branch of Waitrose within 30 miles, not that I want another supermarket plonked down in the countryside).

Interesting flavours, smooth texture, satisfying size of chocolates. I can testify that you can eat twelve of them at one go without feeling sick. Unfortunately they don't seem to do bars of chocolate.

With the right marketing this is a brand that could take on Cadburys and win.

More:
http://www.hodchoc.com/chocolates/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/aug/07/victorian-style-model-towns

Prestat Choxi

Prestat Choxi - very smooth, with a complex taste sweet and slightly bitter at the same time (the bitter aftertaste is quite nice).

The company manufactures its chocolate products at Park Royal in London. A real factory, actually manufacturing within the London area. You can buy the products in Waitrose, John Lewis and at the Prestat store in Piccadilly.

They also do single-origin chocolate buttons which are very good.

Here is their home page: http://www.prestat.co.uk/

Everything about this product is attractive

Above: I was in the Co-Op earlier this week and saw these chocolate mint fondants. As you can see, the packets says the product was made with "single estate English peppermint oil". Which was intriguing enough to make me buy a packet.

And searching around on the internet I found this interesting article about the revival of the English mint crop: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/jul/22/foodanddrink.features8

Everything about this product is attractive - Fairtrade chocolate, domestically-sourced peppermint oil, revived crops, careful farming practices, delicious chocolates and sold through a Co-Operative (based in a small council estate, so close to the people it serves).

Caley's Marching Chocolate

Above: Caley's Marching Chocolate. Available as either milk or plain. Very intense chocolate experience - a little overwhelming in some respects. Very strong cocoa aroma. Smooth texture. Manufactured in Norfolk at a real factory employing real people doing real work.

http://www.caleys.com/about-caleys



Above: Irene Rosenfeld has been rewarded for her predatory raid on Cadburys. However investor Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, sold about a quarter of his holding of Kraft shares earlier this month as a verdict on the "dumb" behaviour of Kraft in taking over Cadburys. Perhaps other shareholders will punish the Kraft Board for their coup, or perhaps they will feel that the business needs to operate unconstrained by any sense of morality.



Above: there is a growing sense that globalisation is out of control. On the Today programme this morning the Chancellor George Osborne said that eventually the third world will start importing high-value goods and services and we will all be wealthier as a result. But he did not put any timescale on when this is going to happen, and in the meantime a lot of working class people are seeing their jobs evaporate.

Globalisation is yet another policy with profound and far-reaching consequences which the political elite (all three parties) has decided to impose on the United Kingdom without seeking a mandate from the people.

It might result in us all becoming richer in the long term. Or it might result in a few people becoming unimaginably rich and the rest of us becoming significantly poorer. Whatever the effect, the absence of a mandate makes globalisation undemocratic.

Personally I would like to see import controls on chocolate products - and if that means a Chocolate War with the Americans then so be it.

Self-imposed exile

I know Charbonnel et Walker is the best chocolate in the world.

I know the packaging has the Royal Warrant embossed in gold.

But there are times when I miss the taste of Cadbury's Daily Milk.

I suppose most self-imposed exiles must feel this way.

I suppose all self-imposed exiles are ultimately futile.

If only the evil directors of Kraft would give up and go away, and we could return to how things were before their predatory take-over.

The hostile take-over (financed with debt) was condemned by Nick Clegg during one of the election Leadership Debates. If only Nick Clegg would insist, as part of his coalition negotiations with the Conservatives, to a punitive one-off retrogressive attack on Kraft operations in the United Kingdom. In the good old days Kraft directors would be seized as soon as they set foot on British soil, be hung drawn and quartered, and have their heads stuck on pikes on London bridge.

Hotel Chocolate

Above: my enquiry into the British chocolate industry continues. Hotel Chocolate house milk chocolate has a succulent and seductive taste with several different levels (sweet, aromatic, slightly cloying but in a nice way). The Union Jack pralines were wonderful and I consumed them all at once, one after the other.

Kraft is still unrepentant about the way they have used borrowed money to buy a British institution and rape and pillage its assets to make money for themselves. I would like to see the government ban foreigners using leveraged money to buy British companies (and also put a windfall tax on Kraft's profits in the United Kingdom). Using borrowed money to buy assets is too easy - it just becomes a financial transaction okayed by the bankers (and we know how irresponsible they can be).

Sir Digby Jones appeared on a Radio 4 programme (and also Andrew Neil's Daily Politics) airily saying there was nothing wrong with acquisitions and mergers of this kind. "What people don't understand..." he said, perhaps forgetting that some of us understand only too well how the acquisition scam works and who it benefits. Is it really necessary for a patronising git like Digby Jones to be given airtime to insult our intelligence?

Corrections and clarifications



Above: who are they trying to kid?

In a previous blog post I gave the impression that Green & Black was an indpendent chocolate manufacturer. It now transpires that they were bought up by Cadbury in 2005 and are therefore owned by evil bastards Kraft. I did check the Green & Black website, but obviously not carefully enough (so all the nice things I said about Green & Black in my previous post have now turned to ashes in my mouth).

Chocolate

Intriguing bar of chocolate on sale at Sainsburys. The Chocolate Society is based in Elizabeth Street in London, but some of their products may be made in France. The chocolate had a dry, brittle composition, and it was like eating chocolate chalk (this doesn't sound appetising, but actually it was very good).



Since the Kraft takeover of Cadbury the largest British chocolate company is now Thorntons. Their chocolate is expensive but delectable and very sweet. The Viennese truffles are also good.



What is to be done about globalised companies that move jobs around the world regardless of the devastating impact this might have on individuals and communities? People like Todd Stitzer and that woman who heads up Kraft are indifferent to the suffering they cause. If the workers being made redundant were to physically attack Stitzer and the Kraft woman they would probably be justified (and were I in a jury that was trying the case, I do not think I would convict the assailants).

Martin Sorrell, displaying all of Orwell's "vulgar fat opulence of wealth", lolled around on Andrew Neil's sofa on This Week last night, saying Europe had to become as "competitive" as China. By competitive he means workers should be crammed into migrant hostels, have no welfare support, and get beaten up by the paramilitary police if they strike or demonstrate. If ever someone needs a good kicking it is Martin Sorrell.

Seeds of Change

Continuing my chocolate research, I came across this Seeds of Change bar in Sainsburys. Looking at the wrapping, it had a Lincolnshire address on it, which made me think it had been produced in the United Kingdom. My first reaction was: good old Sainsbury, supporting small local manfacturers.



Eating this chocolate was a very positive experience. Normally I don't like dark chocolate, but this bar had a luxurious melting texture which, combined with the seeds, made it (for me) unique. Sweet and delicate cocoa perfume; intense chocolate taste that did not have even the slightest sickly kickback.

Using the inside of the wrapper, the company had worked hard to counter post-purchase dissonance by offering an attractive narrative that talked about organic Turkish apricots, Black Sea hazlenuts, and Persian walnuts grown on one specific farm in France.

This chocolate bar seemed too good to be true.

And it was.

Searching for Seeds of Change on Google, the company is AMERICAN, and it appears the products are shipped half-way across the world to get to the British market. Worse, their website carries (in tiny text) the trademark of Mars Incorporated, a mega monster. I felt tricked.

So ten out of ten for a product experience, but ZERO out of ten for pretending to be something it isn't. Seeds of Change made me feel a fool for thinking they were small and local. I am going to punish them for this by NEVER BUYING THEIR PRODUCTS AGAIN.

Green & Black's - an alternative to Cadbury's

Above: having made a decision not to put money into the pockets of Kraft shareholders (who launched a piratical raid on the British chocolate industry) I have begun to realise how ubiquitous Cadbury's products are in the United Kingdom. If you go into any sweet shop or newsagents you see row after row of Cadbury's products. Flakes, Crunchies, Creme Eggs etc



Above: it is, however, possible to find independent chocolate makers. Green & Black's was started in London's Portobello Road in 1991 and have since grown into an international company. Their products are organic, which is an additional reason to buy them.



Above: tactile blue outer wrapper, inner foil of pale gold lined with white paper. Little squares slightly indented with a leaf logo. Slight scent of vanilla, even texture, smooth buttery-chocolate taste.

Sweet but not over-sweet. Very satisfying. Satisfaction lasted just over half an hour.

Cadburys

Can you imagine the outcry if a foreign company were to buy up Hershey’s and start to close down plants in America. Or Mars was snapped up using leveraged money, and “efficiency savings” were then made to pay off the purchase loans. And yet that is what has happened with Cadbury’s.

Difficult to know what to do. Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is not bothered (probably he is intensely relaxed again). A boycott of Cadburys products would only hurt the workers.

But certainly we can celebrate small independent chocolate manufacturers. It is surprising how many of these there are in the United Kingdom. Who knows, with enough interest and support these little companies can grow to challenge Cadburys.

So I intend to commence a research campaign of little-known chocolate products and publish the findings here. I will also try to include a company profile. It’s a project I am looking forward to.