By Jenny Wiggins

Just over two years ago, in a speech at Springfield College, Massachusetts, Todd Stitzer, Cadbury’s chief executive, explained why he had given up a career at a New York law firm to join a confectionery company.

“It was clear to me as I approached fatherhood in my early 30s that I had become an adrenaline junkie,” he said.

“Determined to break this pattern, I sought to find a work environment that provided both a better balance in life and values that were consistent with both my accomplishment and service genes.”

Stitzer had initially wanted to be like his father, a YMCA director who promoted the values of “family, service and accomplishment”. But he was also tempted by the law’s high salaries.

So it is no surprise that at Cadbury, where he has worked for more than 25 years, Stitzer found a home he can claim is “performance-driven and values-led”. In the nineteenth century, as well as building housing for workers, the Cadbury family invested in cocoa plantations in Ghana so they did not have to source cocoa beans from markets in London and Liverpool that had links to the slave trade.

Stitzer claims the Cadbury family’s values live on in the company’s decision to invest in ethical projects, such as teaching football skills to children in Brazil, running HIV programmes in South Africa and building wells in Ghana. He adds that Cadbury’s decision to spend £25m-£30m ($41m-$49m) sponsoring the 2012 London Olympics has been undertaken as part of the “special connection” the company has with the British public and the Commonwealth. “This is not necessarily the heritage of competitors we have in the business,” he says. “The Cadburys were principled capitalists, they believed you could make a profit and do the right thing . . . We want to keep those values alive.”

Stitzer speaks regularly to members of the Cadbury family, including brothers Sir Adrian Cadbury and Sir Dominic Cadbury, grandsons of philanthropist George Cadbury. “They want to know how the company’s going.” Today it claims the Cadbury family’s values help it retain strong relationships with its consumers.

“People associated what the Cadburys did with the Cadbury brand,” Stitzer says. The company has received hundreds of letters of support from consumers worldwide for its attempts to resist a takeover from Kraft. One letter from Calcutta, India, says: “Cadbury means a lot to us in India, where we have literally grown up with the brand . . . In this fast-changing world your brand remains a benchmark in individuality.”

Facebook groups such as “Save our Cadbury’s” have also sprung up, although they have not gained significant traction, with most garnering just a few hundred members. Companies and certification organisations that have worked with Cadbury say there is substance to the company’s trumpeted values.

Craig Sams, the founder of Green & Black’s organic chocolate, which Cadbury acquired in 2005, says the company retained him as well as his former marketing director and chief executive as advisers to oversee development of the brand. “A lot of companies don’t do that,” Sams says, adding he is happy with the way the brand has been managed by Cadbury. “Everything is still being done the way we would have done it.”

Harriet Lamb, executive director of the UK Fairtrade Foundation, says Cadbury was brave to be the first big chocolate manufacturer to make a commitment to Fairtrade. “They have set the pace among major multinational chocolate companies . . . engaging with a certification body is a big step for a listed company.”