Cadbury Roses To Ditch Classic Twisted Wrappers

It's a ritual familiar to us all: foraging in a box of chocolates in search of a hidden piece of treasure sparkling with promise. We all love an assortment box, where the fudges, hazelnut whirls and strawberry dreams are wrapped in a twist of brightly coloured, shiny paper. How we thrill to the task of peeling off the paper to get to our reward.

But not for much longer. Roses, the brand owned by Cadbury, is getting rid of twist-wraps in favour of something altogether more modern: flow wraps.

This is the packaging jargon for wrappers with a jagged end. Instead of untwisting a caramel, you will now have to tear it open. The wrapper can no longer be scrunched and tossed into a parabolic arc. Try screwing a "flow wrap" into a ball and it flips back into shape and drifts sadly to the ground.

It is the latest in a long line of changes that the company has introduced since it was bought by Kraft in 2010.

The US owner of Cadbury is now called Mondelez - the confectionery business of Kraft was made a separate company in 2012 - and has already sparked scandal among chocolate traditionalists by replacing Dairy Milk for a cheaper chocolate on its Creme Eggs, rounding the corners on Dairy Milk bars, and axing its chocolate coins.

Tony Bilsborough, of Cadbury, says: "We've changed the wrapping simply because the quality of twist wrap was just not up to scratch. Time and again, we were getting complaints that the twist wraps were coming undone, or the entire wrapper itself was appearing empty in the box. It was our number one complaint."

It is certainly true that if you open a box of Roses, there are always a handful of sweets that look as if they have been assembled by an unskilled three-year-old. The odd rogue empty wrapper was not unheard of, but that just added to the experience.

Yes, I was able to open the new ones with ease and there was no sign of flow wrappers' notorious impenetrability. But rummaging your hand in the tub was definitely less satisfying than before. And watching the country fudges come off the factory line at the rate of 1,000 a minute, they looked like silvery pillows, rather than traditional sweets. Yes, the new packaging lines are quicker - twist-wrapping machines can wrap as slowly as 450 a minute - but this new chapter ignores a fundamental part of the history of chocolates and confectionery in Britain.

Dorothy Briggs, a lifelong Cadbury fan who was the first to blow the whistle on the demise of the coins, when told about the flow wrappers said: "This is a step too far. The Cadbury name used to be synonymous with superb quality and tradition. I have completely lost faith in the products."

The Cadbury team at Bournville are braced for a backlash.

"We are well aware that by moving from twist wrap to flow wrap, there will be some traditionalists who will say, 'We love the old twist wrap'. That's true. But I think what people want more than tradition is quality. It's no good to have twist wrap if some are undone, some are tainting the other flavours."

Cadbury New Zealand has been contacted to find out if and when there will be any changes to Roses locally.

- Daily Telegraph UK

- NZ Herald