1. How will I know my Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate block doesn’t contain palm oil?

We’ve already updated the packaging on our Cadbury Dairy Milk 200g block, our best selling block, to reflect the higher content of Cocoa Solids (26% rather than 21%) and we’ve also removed vegetable fat from the list of ingredients.

We have now re-designed and updated the packaging of our chocolate blocks to show that the cocoa solids are 26% in all of our blocks. These new packs are starting to flow through to shop shelves now. In the interim, you can be confident that any Cadbury Dairy Milk block in the previous packaging is palm oil free by checking the Best Before date on the back of the pack. All of our moulded chocolate blocks with Best Before dates including and after the date 22/11/2010 do not contain palm oil in the chocolate.

There remain some of our chocolate blocks – those containing inclusions, caramels, creams or wafers such as Caramello, Black Forest, Rocky Road and Snack – where we are currently unable to make the product without the inclusion of a small quantity of palm oil. In these instances the limited amount of palm oil we purchase comes from certified sustainable palm oil sources.

2. What about palm oil in other Cadbury blocks?

Our immediate priority has been to remove the palm oil from our ‘pure’ Cadbury Dairy Milk milk chocolate range, i.e. Cadbury Dairy Milk blocks themselves not the wider range which contains fillings and inclusions. Pure Cadbury Dairy Milk is our most popular chocolate block and our business’s signature brand, and from a production point of view it’s also quicker and easier to take the palm oil out here first.

There remain some of our chocolate blocks – those containing inclusions, caramels, creams and/or wafers – where we are currently unable to make the product without the inclusion of a small quantity of palm oil. In these instances the limited amount of palm oil we purchase comes from certified sustainable palm oil sources.

3. Why are you taking palm oil out of Cadbury Dairy Milk milk chocolate, haven’t you only just put it in?

We’ve listened to our Kiwi consumers who told us loudly and clearly that they didn’t want palm oil in their Cadbury Dairy Milk milk chocolate – so we’re removing it.

4. You say you’re taking palm oil out of Cadbury Dairy Milk milk chocolate, what are you putting back in its place?

We have replaced the palm oil with cocoa butter.

5. Do you have palm oil in your other products, and if so then why aren’t you taking palm oil out of these too?

There are some of our products – those containing inclusions, caramels, creams or wafers – where we are currently unable to make the product without the inclusion of a small quantity of palm oil. In these instances the limited amount of palm oil we purchase comes from certified sustainable palm oil sources.

In most instances palm oil has also been used in these product recipes for many years, and Cadbury remains one of the few companies in the world that pays an additional premium to support the development of the certified sustainable palm oil.

6. Are you going to take this action in Australia as well?

Yes, our decision to return to a cocoa butter-only recipe for Cadbury Dairy Milk means that all the Cadbury Dairy Milk milk chocolate produced for New Zealand and Australian customers will be free from palm oil.