Closure of Dunedin Cadbury would put 350 employees out of work but locals hope to buy its equipment and start a new factory

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A crowdfunding campaign to save a chocolate factory in New Zealand has raised NZ$3.3 million in less than two days, prompting hopes that locals can continue the tradition of chocolate-making – and eating.

Mondalez International announced in February it planned to close its 80-year-old Dunedin Cadbury factory next year, putting 350 employees out of work and shifting production to larger Australian plants.

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The closure put the future of niche sweets and chocolate beloved by Kiwis such as Pineapple Lumps, Chocolate Fish and Jaffas - in jeopardy.

Local Dunedin councillor and businessman Jim O’Malley and a team of volunteers have started a campaign to save the “iconic” history of industrial chocolate-making in Dunedin, with the aim of raising NZ$20 million in two weeks.

The campaign launched on Wednesday and has already raised NZ$3.2 million dollars from over 2000 pledgers.



They money would be used to purchase chocolate-making equipment from Cadbury’s and buy a smaller factory in North Dunedin.

“I was worried this would be a total flop and no-one would pledge,” said O’Malley, a pineapple lump fan, who described the closure of Cadbury’s as “very sad”.

“But people have been pledging from all over New Zealand and around the world, I think chocolate-making in Dunedin is seen as part of our national identity.”

O’Malley said a quarter of all pledges had come from Auckland, and the largest pledge so far was NZ$50,000. A number of pledges had also been sent from overseas, including North America, England and Australia.

“I’d love to own 0.1% of a chocolate factory!” wrote Corwin Newall on the campaign’s Facebook page.

“We can only try!!!” commented Adrienne Buckingham on Facebook. “As Shakespeare said, nothing comes of nothing.”

The pledges to ownthefactory.co.nz are investments, not donations, said O’Malley, and pledgers would become shareholders if his company, Dunedin Manufacturing Holding, was successful in securing third-party production rights from Mondalez.

At this stage the pledges were in written form only, and no money had changed hands.

Mondalez confirmed it had a number of bids from companies vying to take over production of Cadbury’s New Zealand products, including Dunedin Manufacturing Holding.

Steve Anderson, the South Island CEO of Food Stuffs, New Zealand’s largest retail grocery organization, said his company whole-heartedly backed the community initiative to save the factory.

“We’ll back the bid to save Jaffas and Pineapple Lumps!”, said Anderson in a statement.

“We salute their initiative and, if their bid is successful, Foodstuffs will get right in behind them and work with them to get set up,”

“We’ll help them sell to us, put the product on shelf and promote them to the millions of customers.”

O’Malley said if the deal went ahead his new company would be able to employ between 25-50 experienced chocolate makers from Dunedin, and would be in operation by August next year.