On its bicentenary the chocolate maker Cadbury is keener than ever to remind consumers of its deep connection with the British public: “Yours for 200 years”.

Well, not entirely. Since 2010 Cadbury has belonged first to Kraft then after 2012, to Mondelēz International, a US-based confectionery giant that still chooses to operate factories and pay taxes within Russia. In Ukraine Mondelēz was designated, in 2023, an “international sponsor of war”.

Its chairman and chief executive, Dirk Van de Put, prefers to think of the Mondelēz mission as “empowering people to snack right”. “Snacking made right” appears on every Mondelēz International website, including its Russian language one. “I remain humbled to advance the important work of Snacking Made Right for generations to come,” Van de Put concluded a recent statement, which reported that the related practice of “mindful snacking” is “being applied across our entire portfolio”. Including at Cadbury, presumably. Learn from Mondelēz how to “eat with intention and attention”. Or as it calls the practice on its Russian-language page, НАСЛАЖДАЙСЯ МОМЕНТОМ. That way you can be sure, for instance, that each chocolate chunk from the collectable, limited-edition Cadbury 200th anniversary tin will remind you first of Mondelēz International, then of Van de Put, and then, inexorably, of the international arrest warrant for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

Given the risk informed consumers will conclude, having taken Van de Put’s slogan to heart, that it can’t be right to snack on products from a company whose taxes could have helped fund the killing of........

© The Guardian