Customers visiting the five-day pop-up will be greeted by a free Cadbury Plant Bar.

This month, following in the footsteps of Burger King, Cadbury is opening a one-of-a-kind vegan pop-up shop in Soho, London.

For five days starting on 22 March, Cadbury’s unique sweet shop will welcome chocolate lovers of all kinds.

This move comes on the heels of the chocolate giant ​​launching its first-ever vegan chocolate bar in the UK in October last year after making the announcement nearly two years ago.

According to Timeout, the iconic 197-year-old confectionary company, which has been fairly late to join the vegan chocolate bandwagon, is hoping to dispel ‘undue negative attention’ towards veganism.

And to do this, customers visiting the pop-up will be greeted by a free Cadbury Plant Bar.

While the pop-up will have both renditions of the vegan bars: smooth chocolate and smooth chocolate with salted caramel pieces, it is not clear what other products will be available.

Vegan Cadbury demand

A 2019 Veganuary poll found that people living a plant-based lifestyle were eagerly waiting for Cadbury to veganize its iconic chocolates. 28% of the poll’s respondents were craving a vegan Dairy Milk option.

⁠To acknowledge its fans, Cadbury released an apology: “Dear plant-based Britain, we’re sorry. Sorry it’s taken this long, sorry it seemed like we weren’t listening to your calls, sorry for not being able to respond to the rumors. And sorry for all the other chocolate you’ve had to eat while you wait.”

“We hope you’ll agree it was worth the wait,” it added.

Vegan confectionery market

Demand for vegan chocolate has been on the rise for quite a while. A report by Research and Markets has pegged the vegan chocolate market to reach $1 billion in global sales by 2027.

According to the report, this burgeoning growth is primarily being driven by “millennials and the working population”, who are highly adopting the vegan culture in a bid to seek out dairy-free options for health, environmental, and ethical reasons.

This has prompted leading chocolate brands to aggressively pursue the plant-based confectionery space.

Last summer, Nestlé launched vegan versions of KitKat bars in the U.K.

The US-based confectionery leader, Hershey’s, rolled out its oat milk bars later last year.

Last month, Harrods, the world’s largest luxury department store, added vegan milk chocolate desserts to its iconic Food Hall.

• Read: Galaxy to finally launch a vegan white chocolate, says Insider

Mohsina Dodhiya

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