Cadbury's chocolate secrets revealed

Cadbury yesterday let the cat out of the bag. Making blocks of chocolate is so simple even a journalist can do it.

And the recipe (sorry Cadbury) is simply this. -

Take one small jug of liquid chocolate from a man in a white coat. Add colourful ingredients from another container. Mix, and pour into a mould. Cool and eat.

This secret was revealed to a small group of "very important people", including this ODT reporter, invited to the Dunedin factory for "Cadbury Day".

"Cadbury Day" is the day when the factory raises money for the Child Health Research Foundation's Cure Kids.

So, while the rest of the factory's staff got on with turning out 20,000 tonnes a year of Cadbury products, we VIPs - some of whom contributed $800 to Cure Kids - were invited to make our very own blocks of chocolate.

But, not so fast. There would be tests.

First, a blur of forms with tiny writing required a signature.

We declared we did not have typhoid fever, influenza and hepatitis A and that we were not allergic to sulphites or chemical cleaning compounds or peanuts or lots of other things.

And we declared we were "visitors" and therefore not undertaking any work task which, of course, was fudging the truth a little considering the chocolate block-making to come.

Then, with the words of science and technology manager Anna Barlow ringing in our ears - "most of all today is about having fun" - we followed Cure Kid ambassador William Currie (8) beyond the bounds of the public factory tours, through a faint smell of Turkish delight, towards the place Cadbury calls its "inner sanctum", its "sensory chocolate development laboratory".

But, again we were tested.

"We want you guys to use your mouth," food technologist Julia Clearwater instructed as she directed us into small cubicles filled with red light, a form, ice-cream sticks, some water and not much else.

In a flash of white light, a small door slid open and a tray loaded with three pieces of Moro bar stood before us.

The triangle test.

The odd one out, for anyone who might follow in our footsteps, is sample 781.

Two Milk Tray chocolates followed. The paired comparison test. The one on the left is nicer.

More corridors, a chocolate "waterfall", a handwashing system requiring good knee-eye co-ordination and, finally, we were in the inner sanctum, where young people with degrees and white coats play with flavours and textures and lots of runny chocolate.

It is a space with the high ceilings of an old style school classroom, where new ideas are formed and where old ideas are varied, where sugar and milk and cocoa beans and lots of heat, grinding and beating come together.

And a place for a truly happy ending.

The VIPs got the chocolate, Cure Kids got the cash, Cadbury got the warm fuzzies and William got the morning off school.

Oh, and just to be clear. The inner sanctum is a model of cleanliness and there is no cat.