Cadbury had to spend a whole day explaining why their chocolate is Halal

Spare a thought for Cadbury’s social media team after some poor soul had to spend the entire day explaining the Halal status of the company’s chocolate.

The whole debacle seems to have been kickstarted on Facebook when someone shared a picture of a man holding Halal certificates in front of a Cadbury’s sign, with the caption “Cadbury proudly displaying their latest new Halal certificates, pass it on.”

Halal food is food that has been prepared according to Islamic law, as defined in the Koran; the Islamic form of slaughtering animals, dhabiha, involves killing them in a specific way.

The post was screengrabbed and posted to Twitter and people began complaining to Cadbury’s UK account directly.

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A simple image search reveals that the photo in question was taken in 2014 in Malaysia, where Cadbury was given official Halal status after there were questions raised about whether the company’s chocolate contained pig DNA (it did not).

Not to let a little thing like facts stand in the way of outrage, angry tweeters continued to blast the company with tweets demanding explanation.

Again and again, the Cadbury UK twitter account explained: “None of our UK products are Halal Certified and we have never made any changes to our chocolate to specifically make them halal. They are just suitable for those following a halal diet in the same way that standard foods such as bread or water.”

There is some controversy over Halal slaughter; many think it is an inhumane way to kill animals. However, very few of the people complaining about Halal in this case mentioned animal welfare.

Other Twitter users also complained that the company has taken the word ‘Easter’ off its Easter eggs; which also turned out not to be true.

“It’s not true to claim we have removed the word ‘Easter’ from our Easter eggs, it’s clearly stated on the back of the pack,” the Cadbury’s UK twitter account tweeted. “And even embossed on some of our eggs. We’ve also used it in our marketing for over 100 years & continue to do so in our current Easter campaigns.”

Finally, a tough question was posed that Cadbury seemed to have no answer for:

What is the world coming to?