Cadbury freezes all ads amid salmonella scare

Cadbury's sponsorship of Coronation Street is the biggest deal of its
type, worth ú10m a year. It accounts for more than half of the company's
media spend, and was recently used to promote the launch of its Creme
Egg bars, in support of TV ads.

The ads have also been pulled, even though the brand was not affected by
the salmonella contamination scare and has not been recalled from
retailers. 'This is a short-term measure in the light of the current
issue,' said a Cadbury spokesman.

In contrast, British Airways, which last week became embroiled in a
price-fixing investigation by the Office of Fair Trading in the UK and
the Department of Justice in the US, is continuing to run executions for
its short-haul fares, with the company claiming it was 'business as
usual'.

Cadbury has been criticised for the time lapse between the initial
discovery of a salmonella strain in January and its confirmation last
week to the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and environmental health
officials. Questions have been raised as to whether it withheld
information about the contamination until after the key Easter sales
period.

The recall was announced on Friday. By Monday afternoon, a Cadbury
spokeswoman claimed 'the vast majority' of affected products had been
removed from shelves, though she would not indicate a percentage.

Cadbury said it did not report the contamination because the levels,
which were under the authorised threshold, were so low.

An FSA spokesman said any contamination of a ready-to-eat product
warrants a product recall. 'Chocolate is a high conductor of salmonella
and needs only a low level of contamination to be a risk to health,' he
added.