Fact Check: All Cadbury products made and sold in India are vegetarian; misleading claim goes viral

New Delhi (Vishvas News): A screenshot has been going viral on the internet in which it is claimed that confectionery firm Cadbury has announced that all its products contain Halal-certified beef. Along with this, users are appealing to the people to boycott its products, mainly chocolates. Vishvas News in its investigation found that the viral claim about Cadbury is misleading. Cadbury has also clarified that all the products manufactured and sold in India are purely vegetarian.

Claim:

Sharing the screenshot on April 11, Facebook user (archive link) Vijay Gandharva wrote, “All of you countrymen are requested to boycott Cadbury Dairymilk chocolate, neither eat nor feed it. Because the Cadbury Dairymilk Chocolate Company has accepted that the chocolate is made from beef.”

Investigation:

Vishvas News first analysed the URL and found the link to be of an Australian domain; also the About section carried Australian details.

We also found the viral message on the site.

We searched about this on Google with relevant keywords. According to the news published in Live Mint on July 20, 2021, “Dairy milk maker Cadbury has issued a clarification that the company does not use beef and its products are 100% vegetarian. The British multinational company owned by Mondelez International has issued this clarification in view of the cases of boycott of Cadbury products on social media”.

On July 18, 2021, Cadbury Dairy Milk, through its official Twitter handle, responded to a user and wrote “that the viral screenshot is not of Mondelez product made in India. All the products made and sold in India are 100% vegetarian. The green dot made on the wrapper is the identity of this.”

Vishvas News did not find any such notification on Cadbury India’s website.

Earlier in July 2021, this same screenshot went viral. At that time Vishvas News contacted Mondelez, the company which owns Cadbury and asked about the viral claim. Mondelez spokesperson told us, “Cadbury has put its side through Twitter. It has been clarified that the viral screenshot is not related to Mondelez/Cadbury products made in India. All products made and sold in India are vegetarian.”

We reached out to Mondelez via mail for further confirmation. The company responded with, “We have issued our official statement in this matter. This can also be seen on Cadbury’s Twitter page. Along with that he also sent us the link of the tweet.”

We scanned the profile of Facebook user ‘Vijay Gandharva‘ who shared the misleading post. He has around 4,700 followers and he follows 892 users. He is inspired by a political party.