Cadbury this afternoon announced the loss of 145 jobs in Dunedin and the downgrading of its operation there from manufacturer of chocolate products to being a bulk producer of chocolate crumb. It’s a loss all New Zealanders should mourn.

There’s been a Cadbury factory in Dunedin since the nineteenth century. Over the decades the company has morphed from Cadbury Fry (chocolate and chocolate) to Cadbury Fry Hudson (chocolate, chocolate and biscuits) to Cadbury Schweppes Hudson (chocolate, soft drinks and biscuits) to eventually part from the Hudson name in the nineteen eighties, focusing solely on chocolate and confectionery. Today it’s part of a multi-national conglomerate, a link in a corporate supply chain that will see all chocolate products manufactured in Australia from chocolate crumb made … in Dunedin.

Dunedin, you see, has a cool dry climate perfect for making cocoa mass – that’s the only reason the factory is being retained by the corporate coffee bean counters. The skills and experience built up over the years? They don’t matter. The Cadbury chocolate products on sale in New Zealand in two year’s time will be mass produced in an even bigger and more impersonal process in Australia.

I’m from the south. Dunedin and the years I spent there have a special place in my heart. I never open a Cadbury chocolate bar without thinking about that connection, remembering the Cumberland Street factory which I first visited when they were still making biscuits there. I’ve always bought Cadbury products out of loyalty, although that’s become harder over recent years.

The problem is, I no longer like Cadbury chocolate all that much. Even their dark chocolate is sweeter than my ideal, and some supermarket chains here in Wellington appear to only stock Cadbury milk chocolate products, which has made for difficult choices at times. I suppose the selfish plus side of this news is that I’ll no longer be conflicted in those situations. My loyalty, it seems, has the firmness of a chocolate bar left in a car on a hot day.

I have good memories though: the bags of broken biscuits brought home by Cadbury staff; my daughter’s wide eyes when we took her through the factory as a toddler; the smell in my central Dunedin office when the wind was from the east.

Thanks for the memories. It’s sad that, soon, that’s all there’ll be.