Life is far from sweet for one of Britain’s most famous companies.

On Monday of this week Cadbury’s announced it was planning to cut 15% of its global workforce in a bid to sustain the profitability of the business . The company, that was set up to sell tea and coffee in 1824, will next month find out what penalty it faces in the aftermath of the highly publicised salmonella outbreak in the UK last summer.

The scare, which led to almost one million bars of its chocolate being recalled, was sufficient for Birmingham City Council - who police health and safety at the company’s Bournville site in the midlands where the chocolate-making process is completed - to prosecute Cadbury’s for the alleged sale of “unsafe” chocolate.

Cadbury’s also faced a prosecution from Herefordshire Council over charge relating to environmental health.

The verdicts, the first of which is expected on 24 July, are likely to raise some important questions concerning Cadbury’s supply chain and where the actual blame for the outbreak lies.

However, regardless of whether the salmonella outbreak originated in their Birmingham site or was passed on by one of their suppliers, Cadbury’s have said that the bill for dealing with the contamination is likely to top £30m. A total of which, as you would imagine, would be punishment enough.

However, the six offences the company are alleged to have committed in relation to Herefordshire Council’s prosecution carry a maximum penalty of an unlimited fine and/or two years imprisonment.

Although the chances of the company’s top executives facing a prison sentence is small (when I last looked , there were no more cells free anyway) the seriousness of the offences merely serves to demonstrate the importance of a robust and rigorously policed supply-chain.

Something which Cadbury’s are finding out to their considerable cost.