Cadbury reports steady progress

Cadbury Schweppes said today UK trading ahead of Christmas was “satisfactory” as it looked to recover from a damaging salmonella scare over the summer.

The confectionery giant said it had been “a challenging year in the UK” after it was forced to take more than a million chocolate bars off shelves following the outbreak in June.

It said profits in the second half will be hit by conditions in the UK although it added that the company was in line to meet expectations after a pick-up in sales ahead of Christmas.

However, it also reported a “significant and deliberate” overstatement of the financial position of its 50%-owned subsidiary Cadbury Nigeria.

Cadbury said it expected its Nigeria arm to report operating losses of between £5m (€7.4m) and £10m (€14.8m) this year and pay a one-off charge of £55 million to £60 million for the overstatement.

Cadbury has three manufacturing outlets in Ireland - in Coolock, Dun Laoghaire and Kerry. Cadbury Ireland employs about 1,600 people.