Workers clock off for last time at Cadbury

MORE than a year after its closure was announced, Dunedin’s landmark Cadbury chocolate factory has shut up shop.

Production workers at the site, which dates back 150 years, clocked off for the final time at noon on Thursday.

The few employees left will be engineering workers decommissioning the plant.

In February 2017, owner Mondelez International told the 350 staff of its plans to move production to Australia.

E tu union onsite vicepresident Teresa Gooch, who had worked at the factory for 17 years, said it had been a rough few months for those still there.

For most, this week had been a final tidyup in nearempty premises. After having watched the equipment being dismantled around them, Ms Gooch said, most people could not wait to finish up.

‘‘It’s been really tough, tougher than I thought it would be,’’ she said.

Richard Hudson began baking at the site in 1868 and established what was possibly the first chocolate factory in the southern hemisphere in 1884.

In 1930, the company amalgamated with Cadbury to make New Zealand’s first bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk. Caramilk, Jaffas, Roses, and Moro, Buzz and Pinky bars were among the goodies that flowed out of the factory.

The final production run — a batch of pineapple lumps — rolled off the production line last week.