King Charles is right to take away Cadbury chocolate’s royal warrant – it’s overrated
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As the Birmingham-born chocolate brand loses its royal warrant, Katie Rosseinsky presents the case against this iconic British treat. 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.
![[Cadbury is considered to be an icon of British food, but is it all it’s cracked up to be?]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/23/16/newFile-4.jpg)
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.
