ICT at Cadbury World
On the morning of the 11th December 2014, 30 students from KS3 were lucky enough to get a chance to go to Cadbury world for an educational visit to see how ICT was used to make the chocolate we all love. Soon after 9:00am we departed for Cadbury World where upon arrival we visited the Bournville Experience and learnt that both George and Richard Cadbury were the founders of Bournville village. We discovered how the Bournville village was first created and even attempted creating and designing our own Cadbury packaging. (One of the designs by Arjun Salian, 7 Nelson, can be seen below). We also saw a gigantic chocolate Christmas tree although it wasn’t made of actual chocolate though! From the Bournville experience we then made our way to the worlds’ biggest Cadbury store to make some essential purchases including a selection of unique handmade chocolates. The store also contained chocolate that was exclusive and not for sale in other retail outlets.
We then got to the main part of our trip, which was the ICT educational lecture about how Cadbury use ICT to produce their famous chocolate. Firstly our lecturer informed us about Cadbury’s success, their progression in the confectionery world and their current owners. We also found out that they were recently bought by Mondelēz Europe who are owned by Kraft who are a big distributor of confectionery. The use of ICT was extensive, especially CAD/CAM software which is used to make the moulds and also to see how the new chocolate might look. Adobe Photoshop was used to design the Cadbury flow wrap which can stretch out to over a mile long and only lasts for 45 minutes in the manufacturing process! Our lecturer also explained how other types of software were utilised, including Outlook for emails and a technology called RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) which uses intelligent bar codes to track items.
The quality control process was very impressive and we were informed that if a chocolate bar happened to fall from the production line onto the floor it would immediately be classed as unfit for human consumption and fed to pigs instead. This is because they have a similar digestive system to humans! We then experienced the Cadbury World 4D cinema complete with motion seating and a 3D ride on the Crunchie Rollercoaster.
After lunch we made our way into the Cadbury exhibition and were given lots of free chocolate. The exhibition informed us of the history of chocolate production and we had a demonstration on how chocolate can be produced without the use of machines and technology. Finally we had a tour of the Cadbury factory which was an enjoyable and informative way to end our trip to Cadbury world.
Jude Folorunso, 8 Nelson.
