Cadbury to launch themed café chain

Cadbury unveils chocolate themed high street café concept and looks for further sites across UK.

Cadbury Trebor Bassett is testing a new high street café concept with a chocolate theme, which it aims to roll out across the UK.

Café Cadbury is being tested in Bath, but the confectionery giant is looking for other sites and will launch a chain of stores if the pilot proves successful. The concept has been in preparation for 18 months.

More than 50 new chocolate lines, including chilled chocolate drinks and chocolate fondues, have been developed for Café Cadbury. They are unlikely to be sold outside the cafés and will not compete with traditional Cadbury lines.

A range of gifts and merchandise, such as large jars of Roses, and a gift-wrap service will also feature in the store.

Cadbury Trebor Bassett marketing director Mark Smith says: “This is a premium café concept which capitalises on Cadbury’s unique heritage. This takes the concept of selling chocolate into the new millennium.

“We will carefully monitor the success of this first store but we’re confident it represents a powerful development of our existing brand presence programme.”

Cadbury is the latest food and drink company to test high street outlets.

Nestlé moved into “out of home” with Café Nescafé. Van den Bergh Foods has opened two tea bars called Ch’a, while Tetley is considering rolling out its Manchester Gaffers café. Typhoo launched tea bar t-fresh at the Millennium Dome, but has yet to decide whether to roll it out nationally.