Cadbury to reduce the size of its chocolate blocks

It’s bad news for chocolate fans everywhere. Cadbury is at it again, messing with its popular family-size blocks of chocolate.

You’re about to get less chocolate bang for your buck with confectionary giant Cadbury confirming its famous Dairy Milk blocks are set to shrink. Again.

The firm, owned by US food company Mondelez, said increased input costs were behind the reduction in size that was announced today.

“We want to keep our Cadbury blocks affordable, so decided to reduce the block size rather than increase the price,” said Paul Chatfield, Cadbury’s marketing director.

The firm said it would also slightly reduce the recommended retail cost of some of its incredible shrinking blockss from $4.99 to $4.79. But the price cut would be proportionally less than the chocolate reduction.

The shelf price is not set by Cadbury though, but rather by retailers who could decide to pocket the lower price themselves.

Savour this 200g bar. It’ll soon be 180g.

It’s not the first time Cadbury has reduced its bar size. Almost exactly four years ago, its standard 220g block of Dairy Milk went down to 200g.

The new change will see Dairy Milk standard blocks go from 200g to 180g. That means that since 2015 Cadbury Dairy Milk blocks have gone from 220g to 180g, a reduction in size of almost a fifth.

Cadbury Dairy Milk with Picnic will go from 180g to 170g while Old Gold will diminish in size from 200g to 180g.

However, Cadbury Bubbly blocks will head slightly in the other direction, growing from 155g to 160g.

Just imagine how massive this bar of Cadbury must have been in the day.

“Due to increased costs in the four years since we last made a change, we are making our Cadbury blocks slightly smaller, but we are also slightly reducing the recommended retail price,” Mr Chatfield said.

“We’re working hard to ensure Cadbury can continue to offer Australians the highest quality chocolate — with the same recipe and ingredients — at the best possible price. There’s no change to the signature Cadbury chocolate taste or quality that we know Australians love.”

The cocoa price has fallen substantially from a high in 2016 but Cadbury has insisted its overall costs have grown.

“We’ve seen an increase in business costs across the board including some ingredients, transport, energy, packaging and manufacturing. For the last four years we have absorbed these costs instead of making any changes to the size or recommended retail price of Cadbury family blocks, however it isn’t sustainable for us to continue to do that,” said Mr Chatfield.

Dairy Milk blocks coming off the line in Hobart. Picture: Chris Kidd

The news has peeved some Cadbury fans. On the company’s Australian Facebook page, Joanne McKeown said: “Would rather pay a bit more for a sensible size that the family can share.”

“Another year, another size decrease,” Jeff Witorski said.

One person added: “You really have to wonder how small they will be in a decade.”

Others were more sanguine, “It sucks but u gotta do what u gotta do,” said one.

Most Cadbury products sold in Australia are made at factories in Hobart and Melbourne.