Is Cadbury’s Dairy Milk about to go dark?

BOSSES at Cadbury have registered the name ‘Dark Milk’ for a new variant of its best-selling chocolate bar containing more cocoa.

There is speculation the move is designed to protect the brand from breaking EU rules after the Brexit vote.

There are concerns that when Britain leaves the EU, other countries will block sales of Cadbury’s on the Continent by redefining chocolate.

The problem stems from the fact Cadbury’s Dairy Milk contains vegetable fat, which, historically, has not been allowed by the EU. Chocolate purists like the Belgians, French, Italians and Spanish have been particularly critical of British chocolate.

The Europeans only agreed to accept our chocolate in 2000 after Britain won a 30year battle to allow sales.

Former deputy prime minister and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg told food industry leaders last week that this agreement could be torn up following the Brexit vote. In that case, Cadbury and other British manufacturers would need to change their recipes to include more cocoa and remove vegetable fat if they still want sell their products as ‘chocolate’ in Europe.

Cadbury is now owned by Mondelez, after a takeover by the US food giant Kraft, which has registered the name Cadbury Dark Milk with the Intellectual Property Office under the chocolate, biscuits and cakes category. The company has refused to give any reasons for doing so.