Will the world's richest investor save the world's oldest chocolate firm?

It's an extraordinary question, and the answer lies somewhere between Keynsham, North East Somerset, and Omaha, Nebraska.

The chocolate firm belonged to Joseph Fry, who registered a patent in 1777 for the manufacture of chocolate tablets, in Union Street, Bristol. Part inventor, part apothecary, the Quaker chocolatier lived an extraordinary life, (read more on that here), and his sons eventually created the world's first edible chocolate bar (before then it had only been a drink) in 1847.
But it's the Fry factory at Somerdale, outside Keynsham, that matters today.

Fry's Chocolate Cream. Turkish delight. The Crunchie, the CurlyWurly. Names that make mouths water across Britain, names that make us all seven years old again. All made in the famous chocolate factory at Keynsham.

Spin forward a couple of centuries and, as we now all know, the factory is now owned by Cadbury. Another Quaker baby, yes, but those days are long gone. Now the investors want returns, and the management insist a move to Poland will cut costs.

And that, we all thought, would be that.
Goodbye Crunchie, hello 'Crunchski'.
Quite.

But then, enter the world's richest investor. Warren Buffett, the "sage of Omaha", the man who started with nothing and now, at 79, is worth a cool $40bn. His firm, Berkshire Hathaway, is the biggest single backer behind Kraft, who today have launched a formal bid for Cadbury's.

So far, so much business as usual. Investors, multinationals, buyouts. No more the magic of the Quaker Apothecary, the sugary dreams of childhood.

Except that Kraft have pledged to save Keynsham. No really, the UK CEO told me so - and if you don't believe me, watch this.

Cadbury's management will dismiss this offer out of hand. But it's not their answer that matters. It's the investors. Over the weekend, the City's smart money was on a refusal unless the price went above £8 a share. Today's bid works out at just £7.20 (though because it involves Kraft shares, the actual bid price fluctuates).

Is that it then? Game over? Mr Buffett rebuffed by Bournville?

Warren Buffett is famous for his thrift. He recently told Evan Davis that he never offers more than a company is worth, even if the market is bidding the price up. If he thinks Cadbury is worth £7.20 a share or £9.8bn, he will walk away before raising his bid. And for Keynsham, that may finally be that. The little bar created by a Quaker apothecary in a Bristol backstreet will head east to Poland, and our chapter in the story of chocolate will close.

Unless, unless... I don't think this tale is done with surprises yet, do you?

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Geoff Burch is full of stories.

The one about his wife escaping from Cheltenham Ladies College down twisted sheets is made up, I'm sure of that.

The one about the bank call centre that won best customer service, but then was told they had cheated because they had "just given the customers what they asked for", well, that has the ring of truth to it, doesn't it.

Mostly, he tells stories about shops. He's one of these business gurus, and he travels from Cheltenham all over the UK handing out tips to small firms, especially small shops.

To add another to his story larder, I teach him to make Maltese Lace.

Well, actually Chris Lane does the teaching, she runs a wonderful haberdashers in Gloucester. If Aladdin had been into embroidery, this would be his cave. Geoff is impressed, with her knowledge and her stock.

"This lady has buttons for teddy eyes, plastic dolls faces," he gushes. "Seventy types of gold yarn - fantastic!"

But he thinks Chris rather hides her lamp under a bushel.

We've come here because small shops like Chris are engaged in a mighty battle, as never before. On one front, of course, the recession, and tight-fisted shoppers. On the other, an avalanche of chain stores from the big multiples. In the last year, the west country has seen hundreds of swanky new shops opening. First Bristol's Cabot Circus, then Gloucester's new Designer Quays, and now - on Wednesday - SouthGate in Bath.

So can the independent shopkeeper survive? Geoff says yes, enthusiastically, but not if they wait for trade.

"Have you thought of popping down the Quays and offering classes?" he asks Chris, over her lace pillow. "An introduction to gold lace - it would go down a storm."

She's not sure. She likes our cameras being there, but you can tell she didn't think unsolicited business advice was part of the deal.

We get a similar story in Aunt Sally's old fashioned sweetie shop, on Westgate Street. Flanked by boarded up casualties of the retail crunch, Aunt Sally sells over 200 varieties of classic old treats, in those famous jars. Foam Bananas, Licorice Torpedos, Butter Tablet (the proper stuff, from Scotland, none of your pale imitations here).

"How about a website?" asks Geoff, sucking on a foam banana ('haven't had these since I was a lad!'). Sally's not sure. Sounds like a lot of work, and her trade is OK - at the moment.

At some point I'm sure we asked lots of hard journalistic questions. Have the Quays really increased footfall in the town, like the city fathers promised? Have the multiples sucked people out of the city centre? Is there a pattern to all these shops that have gone bust?

Trouble is, small retailers are wonderfully diverting. And we kept getting diverted. In Bath, we hit Walcot Street, a kind of Independent State of Retailing. Geoff nearly bought a new pair of boots for the Harley. I popped into big John's bike shop to get change for the meter, and came close to replacing my aging mountain bike with its annoying clunky gears.

But OK, I can hear you clamouring to know the future. Will Bath's quirky shops survive SouthGate? "Yes of course, if they are any good," Geoff soothes.

"Blindfold me and put me in any high street in the country, I'd not be able to tell where I was. But look around you" - he waves his arm at the Bath stone crescents, the Abbey steeple, the high hills around - "where else could we be but Bath! And these quirky one-off shops are what make it. Not some anodyne shopping centre out of a packet!"

It's a rather encouraging story, this. Geoff likens both the crunch and the chain store threat to a hard frost. Weak shops will, sadly but brutally, be weeded out. The strong will flourish.

"The multiples are the middle line," he declares. "Independents need to shoot above the line or below the line. If you go above, they can't touch you for service, for variety, for quality. But don't get caught in the middle."

You can catch up with all the BBC Bristol SouthGate news here. And I'll leave you with a guided tour of SouthGate courtesy of our friendly Bath reporter, Ali Vowles.

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Patrick Kearon could be in Shakespeare. He has an argosy, bound for Bristol. It will bring prosperity to the Royal Portbury Docks, where he works, and the people of the west country. But it's not even on the horizon yet.

"Our story is still negative," he tells me. These docks are the second busiest in the country, a fine artery to feel if you want to take the pulse of the west country.

I see Hondas made in Swindon being loaded here for export. When Renishaw of Gloucestershire carefully pack their high tech medical components for Chinese customers, they'll leave from these quays. Build a row of townhouses in Taunton, and it's likely your steel and cement will swing off a geared ship at Portbury.

And the numbers here tell a clear story.

Year on year, coal is down. Building materials are down, steel, even booze is down. Cars are the only positive, and even they are only moving more than at Christmas 2008. Compared with summer 2008 and before, car imports and exports are still down a fifth.

I drive round the docks with Patrick, on a filming recce for Points West. We're expecting the GDP numbers out today to go slightly positive, but everyone tells me any recovery will be very fragile. Would the docks make a good backdrop to our story on the day?

It's a TV dream. Vast ocean liners swallow Hondas like mackerel. In the coal stacks, you lose your scale and it looks like a giant black sandpit. And then Patrick says something unusual.

"We don't want to clash with your story, Dave. If the story on Friday is about recovery, we might not be the right location. Our story is still negative."

Honesty has certainly been one fruit of this recession. Patrick's not the only businessman who's abandoned trying to talk up his trade.

Here are three of my "insiders" with their take on the story so far:

"It's certainly no time for champagne," smiles Lucy Bristow wryly. "More a half glass of chardonnay." Lucy is my insider in the west country job market, and she reckons things are still awfully iffy.

"It's unpredictable," she says, "some sectors are up, like financial services - which fired lots of people last year, but is now coming back with jobs. But it's still an employers market out there. I think it's way too early to call a recovery."

And yet and yet, those estate agents I met yesterday, those furniture makers, they are seeing proper business coming back, aren't they?

This is all rather hard for journalists. I come back to the newsroom and tell my tale. "Well, is it boom or bust?" someone asks. "Is the recovery here - or not?"

The honest answer is this. It's a bit of a mish-mash. Some areas, like lawyers, finance, estate agents, are busier than they were a year ago when the global crunch hit home. Others, like the docks, and a lot of manufacturing, are still quiet. Then you get the niche business, reliant on exports and enjoying the weak pound maybe. ( In fact, Renishaw are a case in point: their trade to China has lifted recently, allowing them to restore some of the pay cut staff had to take.)

It's not much of a headline is it?
"Mixed fortunes for the west as some businesses do well and some others find it tough, but not as tough as it used to be, mind you September was OK, but then August...."

I decide to go with the docks for our filming. Positive figures or negative, this place captures the spirit of business in the west better than any words.

Hmmm. Help me out here. How is it for you?

Update: 13:02
Well, that was a bolt from the blue. Negative numbers, the recession continues.
As you'd probably guessed, journalists had been planning for a small recovery, guided by the "experts". Turns out my man at the docks was on the money: the worst of this might be past, but there's still more rain out there than economic sunshine.

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