Back in 2010 Kraft the huge American conglomerate who is responsible for making products such as Philadelphia cream cheese and Oreo’s took over the iconic British company. There was much media coverage about the issues that this could cause with the possibility of the original heritage and culture Cadbury being changed as a result.
Over the years we have seen Kraft launch products such as Dairy Milk with Daim, Dairy Milk with Oreo, and chocolate Philadelphia – merging original Cadbury products with those produced by Kraft. Last year Kraft announced that the chocolate in the Crème egg would no longer be Dairy Milk- a fact which outraged many people. In addition this year the multipacks of Crème Eggs would only contain 5 eggs not 6, and there couldn’t be a price reduction to reflect this.
Then this week it was reported in the news that Cadbury would be launching a new flavour of the Crème Egg, a Crème Egg with Oreo pieces and crème inside. This is a huge change from the Crème Egg as we know it which went on sale back in 1971, when Cadbury bought JS Fry & Sons. The egg originally known as the Frys Egg prior to the takeover hasn’t really changed much over the years. So how will people respond to this latest change of an iconic Cadbury product? The full size egg is available in Canada, with the mini versions (like mini eggs) being sold in the UK.
The company claim, “It’s not a replacement for the original Crème Egg (perish the thought) but the new egg has an Oreo cream and biscuit filling and different packaging.”
The original Crème Egg was made in Bristol many years ago by JS Fry & Sons “It’s fair to say that Bristol has never really forgiven the new owner after its decision to close Bristol’s Cadbury Factory back in 2010, resulting in the loss of 400 jobs.” Only 12% of those surveyed in Bristol thought that the new Oreo egg was a good idea.
For any business teacher who is wanting to use Kraft and Cadbury as a case study this covers a plethora of topics on both the AS and A level syllabus. This case would be great to be used for Boston Matrix, Ansoff matrix, managing change, business culture and ethics within a business as well as continuing the look at takeovers and synergies.
A great task as we end the current A2 teaching would be to use the Cadbury/ Kraft study as a revision task to cover the AS and A Level syllabus. This would also be a good way to get the students thinking about using context more in their answers.
References
1 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/news/cadbury-producing-exciting-new-flavour-creme-egg/
2 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/cadbury-oreo-chocolate-creme-egg-available-uk-a7518191.html
3 http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/cadbury-oreo-creme-eggs-are-now-a-thing-and-we-re-not-sure-how-we-feel-about-it/story-30045210-detail/story.html
