Cadbury beats Hershey in London public tasting

A public tasting of Cadbury's and Hershey's chocolate bars by Londoners and tourists in central London today resulted in victory for the British chocolate.

The Royal Society of Chemistry and a team from Keele University's chemistry department offered squares of the American milk chocolate and its British counterpart in the courtyard of Burlington House on Piccadilly.

The tasters came from many parts of the world, including the USA, where the Hershey's bar, like the Cadbury bar in Britain, is a national institution.

Results showed that of the 300 people polled (with nearly two-thirds having been raised outside of the UK) 74% preferred Cadbury, and 26% preferred Hershey's.

Each taster was asked to give each brand a mark out of 10 (with 10 being tastiest); Cadbury received an average mark of 7.1, whereas Hershey's average mark was 5.8.

Of those polled who were raised in North America, 71% preferred Cadbury chocolate.

Statistically those hailing from North America did not have significantly different chocolate preferences from the rest of the world - Cadbury was the clear favourite.

The survey was part of the Royal Society of Chemistry's Food 2009 year, looking at all aspects of food production, transportation, storage, consumption and waste.