CADBURY has made a major change to its chocolate buttons – and customers aren’t happy.
The confectionary company has shrunk the size of its large sharing bags from 240g to 184.8g – 23%.
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As of March 15, Asda and Tesco were selling the new size bags for £2 while the larger size pouches were also £2, reports The Grocer.
The move is known as “shrinkflation”, which is when a product is made smaller and kept the same price.
Companies and retailers usually do it to cover excess production costs.
A spokesperson for Mondelez International, which owns Cadbury, blamed the shrinking of the buttons on the rising cost of energy and ingredients.
They added: “We understand that consumers are faced with rising costs too, which is why we look to absorb costs wherever we can, but, in this difficult environment, we’ve had to make the decision to reduce the weight of our Large sharing bags to remain competitive.
“We offer consumers a range of sizes and price points to choose from.
“Retailers are free to set their own prices in their shops.”
Shoppers have been taking to Twitter in the last few days to share their anger at the move.
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One person said: “If it feels like the bag doesn’t last as long it’s because it doesn’t! Shrinkflation sucks.”
Meanwhile, another disgruntled choccie fan, tagging Dairy Milk, added: “Have you reduced the Cadbury buttons.
“Big share bag size from 240g to 184.8g????”
Cadbury’s isn’t the only company to shrink the size of its products to keep up with rising manufacturing costs.
Pouches of popular supermarket item Ben’s original rice have shrunk from 250g to 220g in recent months.
Mars, which manufactures the rice, said it had made the product smaller due to “significant cost increases”.
Other products including beer have shrunk in size in recent months without a change in price either.
It comes as food prices soared by 16.8% in the year to December, with basics such as milk, cheese and eggs seeing the largest increases.
The Sun approached Tesco and Asda for a comment.
