Cadbury says it's all sweet again

Vans with free chocolate are travelling through 154 towns around the nation as Cadbury Dairy Milk tries to reassure conservation-minded people that its product is fine to eat again.

One van stopped in Blenheim this morning. Four workers inside it, who said they couldn't talk to the media, offered small sample bars of dairy milk chocolate to people in nearby stores and pedestrians.

One recipient was Tasmyn Kibblewhite, 4, in town with her mother Roseanne and little brother Adam, 18 months.

Mrs Kibblewhite said she was allergic to chocolate and Adam was allergic to all dairy products so he couldn't have any, either.

"But it's a nice treat for Tasmyn."

She did not want to comment on the palm oil controversy which caused a public backlash against Cadbury products and forced the chocolate giant to revert to using cocoa butter instead of the vegetable fat – including palm oil – it had switched to earlier in the year.

Palm oil plantations are blamed for increasing global warming and destroying the natural habitats of endangered orang-utans in Indonesia and Malaysia.

"Are we going to get any more chocolate?" Tasmyn asked, swallowing her last mouthful of the tiny block, but her mother smiled.

"Let's go and feed the ducks."

- The Marlborough Express