Cadbury’s eggs shrink 10% but price is the same

CADBURY has shrunk its Easter eggs by almost ten per cent in three years – without reducing the price, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

In the latest example of so-called ‘shrinkflation’, it has cut the weight of its eggs, the chocolate bars that come with them or both to save cash.

Cadbury’s large Easter eggs are up to 9.7 per cent smaller compared with 2019, with sweet-toothed consumers getting up to 25g less chocolate per £3 box. This follows a seven per cent fall in weight between 2018 and 2019, which the firm blamed on surging wholesale cocoa prices.

The four large Easter eggs analysed by the MoS have shrunk by an average of 16 per cent since 2018. A fifth – the Double Decker Easter egg – has been removed from sale, having been cut from 307g to 287g in 2019.

The weight loss means chocolate-lovers are getting up to 45g less chocolate per pack compared with 2018 – equivalent to a whole Dairy Milk single bar. Charles Allen, retail analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said manufacturers planned Easter products up to 15 months in advance, adding: ‘Back then we could see the price of cocoa and sugar was going up. Manufacturers know what price retailers want to sell their products at and have to calculate how they can deliver a product to sell at that price while retaining their profit. That’s where “shrinkflation” like this comes in.’

Firms are facing rising wholesale prices caused by Covid supply problems, a lack of truckers and higher energy costs. But James Daley, of fairerfinance.com, said firms should ‘share some of the pain’.

Mondelez International, which owns Cadbury, said: ‘Sometimes we need to reduce the size or weight of a product so we can keep them competitive.’