Cadbury drops glass and a half slogan

Cadbury has ditched its famous "glass and a half" slogan from the labels of Dairy Milk bars, made at its Bournville factory in Birmingham.

The glass and a half refers to the amount of milk used to make each half-pound bar of the chocolate.

But, after 80 years, it has been replaced by the metric: "The equivalent of 426ml of fresh liquid milk in every 227g of milk chocolate".

Cadbury says the decision has been forced on it by EU Weights and Measures regulations, and has stressed there has been no change to the original recipe.

Spokesman Tony Bilsborough said today: "The 'glass and a half' phrase was used on the back alongside the legal list of ingredients, but that has been metric for at least 20 years.

"It was a bit ridiculous to have it there, as we don't sell half pound bars any more - they are 200 grams. But we are certainly not getting rid of the phrase. It will still be used in our marketing."

The logo of the glass-and-a-half of milk still appears on the bars, but now pouring into the Dairy Milk lettering rather than a piece of chocolate as before.

Cadbury was bought by US food giant Kraft in an £11.5 billion deal earlier this year, but the slogan decision is not connected to the takeover.

With sales worth £371m in 2009, Dairy Milk is the UK's most popular chocolate and has been produced at Bournville, where the company now employs about 2,000 people, since 1905.

The glass and a half slogan was introduced in 1928.

Mr Bilsborough said Cadbury had spoken to the Trading Standards Institute.

But today the institute said Cadbury could have continued using the phrase. Andy Frost, operations director of the institute, said: "The Cadbury slogan is well known by consumers and should not be confused or caught up with food labelling laws.

"The institute would have no objection to the continued use of the famous slogan unless it was considered misleading by consumers."