THE TIMES Monday September 13 2010
The UK president of Kraft is battling to restore his company's reputation after the Cadbury controversy; writes Peter Stiff
The welcome was almost overwhelming, Women danced, men beat drums and children edged closer to watch a bespectacled Western businessman drink the traditional palm wine home brew. That he introduced himself using his local name, Kwabena, merely charmed the residents of the remote Ghanaian village even more.
You had to wonder whether Nick Bunker would have received as happy a reception in, for argument's sake, Bristol. Here, the president of Kraft Foods UK and Ireland would have been associated less with providingjobsthanwiththe closure of the nearby Cadbury plant at Somerdale and, perhaps worse, with reneging on an earlier promise to keep it open.
To this day Kraft insists that its initial promise was sincere and that only later in its controversial purchase of Cadbury, which became public almost a year ago, did it find out that it was too late to keep the factory open. It has left the American food giant with an uphill battle in winning over Cadbury's staff, the public and the British authorities.
"The biggest problem was that people didn't know Kraft," Mr Bunker said, reflecting on the negative comment at the time of the £11.5 billion takeover, which was sealed at the start ofthe year. "People know and love our brands but not the company. The fact we'd been in the UK for 85 years, employed 1,500 people in the UK and had a big coffee factory in the UK wasn't understood."
Mr Bunker added that he was not particularly close to the deal, that it was run largely out of Kraft's American head office, but in any case, he prefers to look forward, not back. "What I'm trying to do going forward is work on the concept that deeds are more important than
words." The most significant is the recent reorganisation of the combined company's office' infrastructure and the closure of its Gloucestershire HQ. "It was a sad day for Cheltenham and for the people who have lived and worked there for many years; equally, it was a
big day for Bournville." The historic home of Cadbury is to become a big research and development centre, but jobs in Cheltenham will belost. Mr Bunker is determined to persuade as many colleagues as possible to move from one to the other and says that most of the Cheltenham based Kraft contingent understand why the decision was made. Mr Bunker himself will split his time between Bournville and Uxbridge, where Cadbury has existing commercial operations.
His promotion in March was a reward for rising through Kraft's ranks in Britain, the Middle East Ce~tral Europe and the company's regional headquarters in Switzerland, not to mention -in the words of his bosses -transforming Kraft's performance in the UK. "I couldn't be prouder to be chosen to run the Cadbury and Kraft business in the UK and Ireland and I'm very well aware of my responsibility of being a guardian of brands with such heritage.
"I grew up with Cadbury as well, I used to spend my pocket money on a Curly Wurly when I was young, so I have a connection to the brand."
He has his connection, too, with Ghana. Mr Bunker was born in the capital Accra, where his father worked as an army doctor. That local name Kwabena is one given to children born on a Tuesday. He claims a "tremendous connection" to the country, where he says his family shared their happiest days, albeit leaving him with relatively few memories, since they returned to England when he was a baby.
But his visit to West Africa is more than a mere walk down memory lane. Here hundreds of smallholders come together to supply most of the cocoa that goes into Cadbury's chocolate sold in the UK. Indeed, with the quality and taste of cocoa beans varying depending on where they are from, Cadbury's chocolate would taste different ifthe company bought elsewhere.
His company is committed to investing about £30 million over ten years to support sustainable cocoa communities in Ghana, educating farmers on how to get better yields from their crop, supplying credit to enable them to develop their businesses and helping them to become Fairtrade-certified, enabling them to receive a premium for the cocoa they produce.
Mr Bunker believes that one ofthe great similarities between Kraft and Cadbury is their approach to sustainability, noting Kraft's launch of Britain's first certified coffee in 2004 and Cadbury making the Dairy Milk brand Fairtrade, a move that he applauded from afar at the time.
"It makes business sense to us to support the communities on which we depend, and we do depend on them. If there's no cocoa there's no chocolate.
"Specifically, Ghanaian cocoa is a critical ingredient to Cadbury, it has been here for more than 100 years and we have a social responsibly to try to make a difference to these communities and their livelihoods. It is important to us that there is a thriving cocoa industry in Ghana."
Yet despite investment in the country, there is a problem. The average age of Ghana's cocoa farmers is above 50, with young people from villages increasingly moving to the city. So Mr Bunker has hired a clutch of bright local graduates to spread out across Ghana and communicate to those considering leaving their villages the importance of the cocoa
industry to the country's economy.
Mr Bunker sees addressing issues such as sustainability and looking after local communities as not simply business imperatives but of huge importance to consumers, too. "Ultimately whatever we do is determined by consumers and they want to know they are eating an ethically sourced product. It's true in chocolate, it's true in coffee and it's true in many other product categories."
Cadbury has sold 300 million bars of Dairy Milk since the brand started buying Fairtrade cocoa. In the past year Cadbury has paid out £2.3 million in Fairtrade premiums -as well as setting a minimum price the organisation adds on an extra premium to allow communities to fund improvementsto healthcare and education.
The difference between villages getting this extra payment and those less fortunate is clear to see. The dance that Mr Bunker and Harriet Lamb, who runs the Fairtrade Foundation in Britain, shared with the locals at their welcome party to a small Ghanaian village, was, you
suspect, well deserved.
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