Sometimes, I just want a Cadbury dairy milk bar. The ones that came in the gold foil and purple paper wrapping. The ones that were made before they were ruined with palm oil and too much sugar. Before they ended up having the consistency and mouth feel of candle wax.
But they don’t exist anymore, so what’s a person to do? I did some digging and found out that Cadbury make their chocolate in a number of different locations, each with their own variation on the formula. You can tell where your chocolate bar was made by looking at the first 3 digits of the code printed on the back (something like OCO, OBO, OWR .. etc). Here’s the breakdown of each of the factories and the differences:
- OWR = Cadbury chocolate (primarily the share size, larger 180g bars) made in Wroclaw, Poland. Generally found I have found these to be the worst tasting.
- OBO = Cadbury chocolate made in Bournville, Birmingham, UK. These taste a little better, and probably for UK customers taste as close as possible to the ‘original taste’.
- OCO = Cadbury chocolate made in Coolock, Dublin, Ireland. I have only seen these printed on the back of the small 8-square bars (53g). These ones are the closest thing I have found to the original flavour I knew growing up. Apparently, they are still using Irish milk to make these and while they still have that waxy texture, they do taste a bit better and creamier.
I have also read online that in Australia, Cadbury are not permitted to use palm oil in their chocolate. Instead, they are using full cream milk and higher cocoa solids than the EU/UK counterparts. Apparently the dairy milk bars there still taste pretty good, but I have not been able to confirm or deny that.
If you have found any decent alternatives, or places I can check out the Australian formula here in Ireland, please leave a comment!
