In January last year Sir Adrian Cadbury and Sir Dominic Cadbury penned a newspaper article in which they described the company’s reputation as “an asset of incomparable value”.

But since Kraft took over several high-profile members staff have left, including many in the advertising and creative team, raising fears the Cadbury brand could suffer under Kraft stewardship.

Mr Hemus said: “It could be that the corporate memory and corporate understanding of what the Cadbury brand is all about is leaving with the people that are leaving as a result of the Kraft takeover.”

Ms Rosenfeld’s reluctance to publicly answer questions about the takeover of Cadbury was more of a Kraft reputational issue than a specifically Cadbury one, Mr Hemus said.

“Her unwillingness to engage is very damaging to Kraft’s reputation and is not a well-conceived corporate reputation management strategy, but it is unlikely to do damage to the Cadbury brand itself,” he said.

“People love Cadbury products and the reality is it will take an awful lot to get people to boycott Cadbury and stop eating their products.

“But it is damaging to Kraft’s corporate reputation and may well do damage internally in terms of staff morale, further damage in terms of community relations in the Midlands and it will sour relations with MPs.”

Meanwhile the unions are not happy with Kraft’s style of communication either – they are still looking for information on Kraft’s plans for the Cadbury workforce in the city and are calling for guarantees on jobs and investment.

Jennie Formby, Unite’s national officer for the food and drink sector, said: “In fact we now have less information about the company’s current state and future intentions than before the takeover.”