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I can’t say that King Charles’ taste in food overlaps much with my own. We’re talking, after all, about a 76-year-old monarch whose favourite meal is apparently pheasant crumble pie (a dish that sounds like it could have been plucked from a royal menu designed by his Tudor forebear, Henry VIII). This is a man who frequently snacks on fruit and vegetables foraged from the sprawling garden of his private residence. I very much doubt he even knows about the concept of Deliveroo. But there is one vaguely controversial gastronomic opinion that the King and I apparently hold in common – and that’s a seeming lack of enthusiasm for the Great British chocolatiers Cadbury.
Allow me to explain. The King, of course, hasn’t embarked on a rant about how much he prefers to settle down with a tin of Celebrations at Christmas rather than scoff a box of Miniature Heroes (although, in my humble opinion, he’d be correct to make that assertion). That’s simply not how the royals operate; they’re famous for showing rather than telling. What he has done, or at least, what the royal household has done, is to revoke Cadbury’s royal warrant, an honour that recognises companies that supply goods or services to the palace and to senior royals.
The chocolate brand, which opened in Birmingham in the early 19th century but was bought by Kraft Foods in a controversial takeover in 2010, is far from the only big name to disappear from the list. In fact, 100 brands and products have had their warrants revoked, including the luxury chocolatiers Charbonnel et Walker and the consumer goods giant Unilever, which owns the likes of Marmite and Dove. “Cadbury is a much-loved brand that has been a part of British life for generations and remains the nation’s favourite chocolate,” a spokesperson for Mondelez International, Cadbury’s parent company, told The Independent. “While we are disappointed to be one of hundreds of other businesses and brands in the UK to not have a new warrant awarded, we are proud to have previously held one and fully respect the decision.” Very magnanimous of them, really.
Buckingham Palace, meanwhile, doesn’t comment on the reasons behind the withdrawal of specific warrants. The decision comes as something of a surprise, though, because Cadbury and its signature purple shiny packaging is often touted as a British icon. Plus, it has a long history with the Windsors. It was first granted a royal warrant by Queen Victoria, his great great great grandmother, back in 1854, when solid chocolate bars were a relatively new innovation (before then, chocolate was more commonly drunk). And it continued as a palace favourite throughout the late Queen Elizabeth II’s reign: she reportedly received boxes of Bournville, the brand’s red-wrappered dark chocolate, every Christmas.
Any suggestion about exactly why Cadbury has fallen out of royal favour is, well, highly speculative. The King’s focus on sustainability has been well-publicised, and some reports have suggested that this factor is increasingly key when it comes to dishing out warrants. But I’d like to humbly put forward another reason, one which boldly breaks centuries of food-related omerta in Britain. And that reason is, brace yourselves, Cadbury’s chocolate isn’t all that great.
British people love to bang on about how our chocolate just tastes so much better than the treats on offer in, say, US supermarkets, like we’re channeling the spirit of Hugh Grant’s Prime Minister in Love Actually when he starts listing an erratic jumble of things that are supposedly better about the UK. But this patting ourselves on the back feels a bit like misplaced nostalgia, the sort of sentiment that is better confined to those Facebook groups where older people reminisce about the days when “proper binmen” roamed the streets. Yes, Hershey’s chocolate is pretty naff, but is our homegrown offering much better these days?
To my taste buds at least (and I will acknowledge that this certainly won’t be the case for everyone, as we all perceive taste in different ways), Cadbury’s products have always been bland and underwhelming. I’ve found they’re either not quite sweet enough, or overwhelmingly so (they quite literally don’t hit the sweet spot). My personal nemesis? The Easter eggs. They’re fashioned from chocolate that is so thin, it shatters into unsatisfyingly tiny shards as soon as you open it. The taste? It’s a bit like snacking on a pile of chocolatey reconstituted dust. The disappointment is immense.
And that’s before we’ve even got onto the topic of shrinkflation, whereby products like chocolate eggs and indeed bars are becoming smaller but more expensive (a process that’s often put down to rising production costs and one that, in fairness, is happening across the food industry). People always moan about Freddos and their ever-rising prices, but whenever they do so, I just wonder: why are you wasting your small change on a depressing and tasteless chocolate effigy of a frog when there are other, better tasting sweet treats available at a similar price?
Yes, I know that bashing this British stalwart is a bit like being mean about Mary Berry or voicing dissent for David Attenborough nature programmes – it’s not the done thing. Perhaps my palette just isn’t refined enough to appreciate its subtle charms. But I’m not the only person to feel this way – there are, inevitably, a handful of Mumsnet “Am I Being Unreasonable”-style discussions where dissenters dare to voice their dislike, and there’s the odd Reddit thread.
Maybe this royal shunning will prompt Cadbury to up their game rather than coasting on their reputation. In the meantime, if you’re planning on popping round to visit between Christmas and New Year, please don’t bring a box of Roses.
